40 
HISTORY OF THE RAT PLAGUE ON THE SUGAR ESTATES. 
Rubana Estate is situated on the right — of the Perak River and 
is about six miles below Telok Anson, in Lower Perak. It was opened 
Th 
rats were such a pest on them that the тусш were forced to desert 
them. It is believed that the rats from the padi fields came into the 
estate and, finding plenty of food, rapidly inereased in numbers until 
the sugar had also to be abandoned. 
a Scotia Estate, which i is on the left bank of the river, imme- 
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brought over the river in the barges with the canes, for the mill 
is on the Nova Scotia side of the river, and all the canes were taken 
over in barges to be crushed. 
The manager of the two estates, Mr. S. Anderson, informed me 
that Jast ba over 300,000 rats were caught by the coolies for a reward 
of so mu k hend, without making any appreciable difference to the 
numbers present in the fields. 
THE NATURE OF THE DAMAGE DONE TO THE CANE 
FIELDS 
The extent of the damage done to the canes by the rats is not to be 
measured by the amount they eat but by the amount they destroy. 
They begin their ravages when the canes are about three feet or so 
high, that is when a Sir of the cane is showing below the growing 
shoot and the leaf stalks. They then gnaw the cane in one or more 
When many rats are in a field it assumes a very ragged appearence, 
from the bent and broken canes falling over beteen the rows. In bad 
cases, I was informed, a field is so damaged as not to be worth the 
expense of cutting and milling. For, as hiec as causing the canes to 
bend and break, when a rat has g awed a e, fermentation sets in 
and the inside of the cane begins to become aad and sour. In 
most cases this change starts from g central portion of the cane and 
olved. 
cane may externally appear quite sound, showing perhaps only one 
hole gnawed in it. Naturally canes in this condition are of little 
ing. 
