Plant Sanitation. 



334 



[April 1908. 



damage yearly in the young crops, espe- 

 cially in the germinating rabi crops. 

 These are flattened insects, white below, 

 with the upper surface roughened and 

 earthy colour ; they abound in the fields 

 and hop up as one walks along. If a 

 wide bag on a frame is run through the 

 field fairly rapidly, the grasshopper, as 

 it jumps up, is caught by the bag and 

 swept up. At the end of each run the 

 bag is twisted up and the insects shaken 

 into a corner and destroyed. In this 

 way a large area can be rapidly and 

 thoroughly cleared, either before the 

 crop is up or while the plants are still 

 young. The cost of a bag and frame is 

 small, as it is all made on the spot and 

 ic should notexceed three rupees. In the 

 case of tobacco, it is very necessary to 

 clear the laud of the grasshoppers before 

 setting out the plants. In Fusa we dip 

 all such seedlings in Lead Arseniate 

 Wash and so render them immune, but 

 the bag, if used before the plants are set 

 out, has the same effect. 



The bag in its various forms is useful 

 in many cases when its application is 

 once understood, and it provides the 

 most practical remedy against a fairly 

 universal pes,t of rice, the Rice Bug. 

 This is a slender green insect, which 

 flies readily when full grown ; it emits 

 the usual aromatic odour of its class 

 and an infested field may often be 

 known by that alone. As the rice comes 

 into ear, the bugs assemble there and 

 suck out the milky juice in the develop- 

 grain. The grain then whitens and the 

 ear has nothing in when it comes to 

 harvest. A light bag, 8 feet wide, run 

 rapidly through the field, brushing the 

 tops of the rice sweeps up these bugs, 

 and though some escape, the bulk are 

 captured. A bag must be used as the 

 insects escape from a plain cloth or 

 dhotie unless it is smeared with sticky 

 matter; the bag is considerably more 

 effective if first soaked in kerosene or in 

 an emulsion made by shaking up kero- 

 sene with sour milk. This method like 

 the others mentioned above is in appli- 

 cation on the Pusa Farm, where ordin- 

 ary coolie labour is employed ; as soon 

 as the bug is found, the bag is used and 

 there is no difficulty in checking this 

 peat. 



Rice is constantly attacked by another 

 class of pest, which yields to simple 

 treatment if that treatment is carried 

 out over any area larger than a few 

 acres ; this pest is the stem-borer, a 

 caterpillar which eats up the centre 

 of the growing shoot of rice and kills it ; 

 the result is that each shoot withers, 

 and as a single caterpillar in many cases 

 attacks several shoots, the damage to 

 the ripening crop is considerable. This 



form of damage is reported from practi- 

 cally every rice-growing tract in India ; 

 several insects are concerned, which are 

 all quick breeders, and of which two or 

 three broods complete their life-history 

 in one crop ; for all these there is but 

 one practical cure ; that is, to pick them 

 all out from the beginning ; if the culti- 

 vator would learn that withered rice 

 shoots contain a caterpillar which, if 

 left alone, breeds and multiplies quite 

 naturally, he might systematically pick 

 out and burn all withered shoots ; these 

 are sufficiently easy to see, and it does 

 not require much time or labour to go 

 over some acres of paddy. Were this 

 known to the cultivator and were he to 

 do it, we believe that no cases of destruc- 

 tion by these pests would ever be seen. 

 In some cases, it is possible also to utilize 

 another method, depending upon the 

 fact that, like the moth-borer of cane, 

 the stem-borer of rice spends the cold 

 weather or hot weather when the crop 

 is not growing in the stubble ; where this 

 stubble can be taken out and destroyed, 

 it destroys those insects which live over 

 until the next crop and then emerge to 

 breed. How far the destruction of rice 

 stubble is possible depends upon local 

 conditions, but it is always a valuable 

 safeguard. 



A common and widespread pest is 

 the surface caterpillar, a dark-coloured 

 smooth caterpillar, over one inch long, 

 which lives by day in the soil, emerging 

 at night to wander about and cut off 

 young plants for its food. This insect 

 can be easily collected by hand, its 

 burrows being revealed by the green 

 leaves which it has consumed ; as a rule, 

 it lies hidden near the plant it has cut 

 off, often at its base, and it is readily 

 found with the hand hoe (kurpi). 



It is perhaps needless to multiply in- 

 stances of this, the simplest of all 

 methods. For very many pests, the 

 remedy is there to hand, namely, to 

 destroy the insects when they firsc ap- 

 pear and so to save the later destruction 

 caused by their natural increase. We 

 have cited cases enough to show that, 

 in very many instances, there are simple 

 methods by which the cultivator could 

 materially lessen the losses caused to 

 his crop by insects. It is perhaps need- 

 less to say that there are other cases 

 where equally simple remedies could be 

 devised by the cultivator, if he knew how 

 his pests lived and multiplied ; in most 

 cases, the scientific study of an injurious 

 insect shows what its weak points are, 

 but to take advantage of them requires 

 also a very thorough knowledge of local 

 agriculture which no one person can 

 have for more than a limited area ; the 

 treatment of such pests must be a matter 



