‘THE ENEMIES OF COFFEE :—WHITE GRUB, 227 
‘tion of the bushes: from the injury done to their 
feeding rootlets, no doubt. If we have much to learn 
so have our teachers. ‘To announce an infallible panacea 
while condemning all that honest and intelligent men 
have done in the past, is surely to give occasion for 
the charge of empiricism. Mr. Dixon, we feel assured, 
is not the man so to speak. That sourness of soil 
and subterranean fungi are great enemies to coffee 
culture, we do not require proof: we have long been 
assured of the fact. But we can no more believe that 
cockchafer grubs are friends and not enemies of the 
coffee plant, finding their food (legions of them as 
there are) in such fungi as can flourish underground, 
than we can accept the other doctrine, held by some, 
that grubs and root fungi are the originators of the 
enormously more mischievous and deadly aerial fungus, 
Aemileia vastatriz. Willing to accept all the light which 
scientific research can yield, we can but say that, as 
yet, while willing to believe that soil sournes:, and 
underground fungi, are great evils, we hold that they 
are, as enemies of the coffee tree, isolated and insigni- 
ficant, when compared with the grubs which feed 
on the roots and the external fungus which destroys 
the leaves of the plant. And we take our stand on 
the assertion that those two destructive enemies of 
the coffee plant have increased and multiplied, not 
because the planters of Ceylon ‘‘have hitherto fol- 
lowed a barbarous system unaided by the lights of 
scientific researches,” but because of laws, for some 
mysterious but ultimataly wise purpose stamped on 
nature by its CREATOR. Our wisdom is to unite in 
fighting our common enemies, instead of indulging in 
mutual recriminations, or hugging the belief that ‘‘ we 
are the men and wisdom will die with us.” 
THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST COCKCHAFERS 
AND GRUBS. 
Minutes of the meeting of the sub-committee of the 
Maskeliya Planters’ Association appointed to enquire 
into the best methods to adopt for the destruction of 
the cockchafers and their larve; held at the Forres 
bungalow, 7th January 1880. Present :—Messrs. R. A. 
Crabbe, H. G. Mackenzie, J. R. Hood, W. J. New- 
ington, and W. Jardine, After some preliminary dis- 
cussion the following were suggested as likely to be 
of use :— 
I. Catching the beetles at night. It is pretty well 
known that the cockchafers are active only during the 
might ;— where they hide away in the day-time is a 
