230 THE ENEMIES OF COFFEE :—WHITE GRUB. 
was employed to dig them out of the ground (for they 
are always near the surface at the end of the feeding 
rootlets) which they did at the rate of about a quarter of 
a bushel per man per day ! Still that Coffee recovered.. 
However, in otner cases (on some estates in Dimbula) I 
have seen the coffee killed wholesale, —and magnificent 
old treestoo. Butthe most glaring instance of the de- 
structiveness of these insects that was brought under my 
notice was on an estate in Nillembe. The work had 
been going on for years, the grubs making their way 
from one end of the property towards the other devour- 
ing everything before them, at the rate of about eight 
or nine acres per annum! Young trees and old, manured 
or unmanured, good soil or bad—all was the same to 
them. Lime, salt, carbolic acid and other remedies were 
tried, but without effect, [ believe, Fair Coffee being 
worth about £40 per acre, this was rather aserious case. 
—The large white grub has just completely destroyed a 
Pine-apple bed of mine without touching a single one of 
the surrounding Coffee-trees.” 
We can only now wait for Mr. Dixon’s observations 
ani report He will no doubt have some interesting 
facts to bring before us. There are some very curious 
circumstances which have long puzzled planters about 
the attacks of grub. At one time it was thought proxi- 
mity to patana rendered an estate liable to attacks, and 
certainly this has proved to be the case in several in- 
stances ; but in Maskeliya on the other hand, where 
many plantations have severely suffered, there are no 
patanas, while in the districts north of Kandy where 
patanas abound—the Knuckles, Kelebokka, and Ran- 
gala, for instance—white grub has scarcely ever been 
heard of. In Nilambe and Ramboda grub was at one 
time very bad, according to Nietner, but Wavendon, 
which Mr. J. L. Gordon reported to have been greatly 
affected, has survived the attacks and is one of the finest 
old properties in theeountry, It seems to us therefore 
that, before a couclusive report can be drawn up, the 
experience of the majority of districts and planters 
ought to be taken into account, but Mr. Dixon’s observa- 
tions will be valuable as a contribution even if hereafter 
sufficient reason to adduced for overturning his main 
conclusion. 
WHITE GRUB. 
Mr. A. C. Drxon’s OBSERVATIONS. 
There appears to have been some misunderstanding 
respecting my opinions of the white grub. I suppose my 
ideas have passed from one to another, and at length . 
become greatly modified after the fashion of a certain 
