and Magazine of the Ceylon A gricultural Society. 



191 



Weeds ! 

 " What about weeds?" 



"The question of weeds in the Straits seems 

 to be in everybody's mouth here, and while un- 

 doubtedly this is a serious difficulty in eomo 

 properties, where, through shortness of labour 

 or neglect or some other cause they have let in 

 weeds, still there are numbers of estates ab- 

 solutely clean, and where old rubber is being 

 weeded at a nominal price. Vallambrosa, I be- 

 lieve, costs about 20 dollar cents an acre only 

 per month and Seafield, quite a young place, is 

 hand-weeded all over for 60 dollar cents an acre. 

 Undoubtedly the rich loam there on some of the 

 estates makes it difficult to eradicate weeds once 

 they get in, but on Caledonia estate I saw 

 a field of rubber, 40 acres in extent, 10 by 

 10', which was planted in original JaJang 

 grass, and at dh years old, under Mr. John 

 Turner's very able supervision, there is not a 

 sign of weed in it, and it has just given a 

 maiden crop of 300 lb. per acre. This is 

 proof that the Straits planter can get over 

 his difficulty with regard to weeding although 

 undoubtedly the weedy estate is a terrible tax 

 on proprietors for the time being. 



News of Old Fbiends a d New ! 

 " I saw a large number of old Ceylon and 

 South Indian friends in the Straits and they 

 nearly all appeared to be doing well. On one 

 estate we took a group of 5 old Travancore men. 

 Mr. R. W. Harrison's old friends will be glad to 

 hear he is looking very well indeed and he says 

 he is much stronger since his operation. Mr. 

 Henley, I am sorry to say, has had a good deal 

 of low fever since he has been down there. I had 

 no time to go and see him at his own bungalow 

 although he came to dinner one night at a 

 bungalow at which I was staying. Mr. Tisdall, 

 however, wertto see him and there met a new 

 pet Mr. Henley has got in the shape of an 

 ourang-outang with red hair. Mr, Tisdall took 

 quite a number of photographs of it. The effect 

 on him was curious : for the next two days he 

 did nothing but go into fits of laughter over 

 this almost human being ! " 



DAMAGING RUBBER TREES. 



DESCRIPTION OF PESTS THAT OCCUR 

 IN PLANTATION. 

 From Mr. F. Knocker, curator of the Perak 

 State Museum, Taiping, we have received a copy 

 of the Journal of the Federated Malay States 

 Museums, to which Mr.L. Wray has contributed 



the following article : — Some years ago a large 

 number of caterpillars appeared on the Para 

 rubber trees at the Government Plantations at 

 Pondok Tanjong, and did very considerable da- 

 mage by defoliating the trees. Some of the cater- 

 pillars were sent to me, and I endeavoured to 

 rear them, but they all died in a few days' time : 

 apparently because they had had rough treat- 

 ment before reaching the Museum. The second 

 outbreak of this same pest was in the early part 

 of this present year at Gapis Estate, Padang 

 Rengas, belonging to the Kuala Kangfar Planta- 

 tions Company. Here again very marked damage 

 was done to some twenty acres of young trees. 

 Four of the caterpillars were sent to me in a 

 tobacco tin, which had had some holes punched 

 through it with a nail, the rough jagged edges 

 of the tin projecting in wards. It is, perhaps, 

 hardly necessary to state that they all died a few 

 hours after arrival. Although I was promised 

 more of the insects, they have never been sent. 



Identification. 

 The following superficial description, which 

 will be sufficient to identify the pest when it 

 occurs elsewhere, was taken down when the in- 

 sects were received : " General colour above 

 black, minutely spotted and lined with white 

 sides with a bright yellow, waved line, starting 

 from just behind the third pair of legs and 

 continuing to the tail. There are some conspicu- 

 ous white spots on the shoulders and on the 

 last segment but one of the body. Head and 

 legs bright reddish brown, prologs black largely 

 spotted with pale reddish brown; beneath, black 

 largely spotted with dull yellow. The largest 

 specimen was some inch and a half in length.' 

 In both cases, the fields attacked were next to 

 some young secondary jungle or bluka, and the 

 caterpillars were also found numerously on much 

 of the vegetation composing it. 



Destroying the Insect. 

 The remedy I proposed in both instances 

 was the well-known one of poisoning the 

 leaves by spraying them with water contain- 

 ing Paris green held in suspension, and the 

 Musem spraying apparatus was lent for the 

 purpose. It was reported that the treatment 

 was quite effective and rapidly killed the pest. 

 It may be mentioned here, as a good deal of 

 misapprehension exists, that this poison acts by 

 being eaten with the natural food of the insect — 

 that is the leaf. Consequently it is necessary in 

 applying it to mix with the water some sub- 

 stance which will make it adhere to the leaves. 

 Otherwise, when they become dry, the powder 



