April i, 1890.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
677 
that time generally practised (namely, constant and 
heavy pruning) needs continuous labour and unremit- 
ting attention. During these years the sugar crops had 
been very good, with high prices, and the coffee-planters, 
in disgust at finding they had short crops, rooted out 
hundreds of acres and planted sugar. 
About this time also, 1873 and 1874, it was first 
noticed that the trees did not bear as formerly, and this 
was by some attributed to a change of season and 
climatic conditions, and decrease in the rainfall ; by 
others, it was suspected to arise from a deterioration in 
the plant itself, in consequence of the seed beiDg planted, 
year after year, from the same trees, and in 1875 the 
Tugela Planters' Association memorialised the Govern- 
ment on the subject, praying that fresh seed might be 
imported, and in a letter accompanying the memorial 
stated : — " The importance of introducing fresh coffee- 
seed into a sub-tropical country like Natal cannot be 
over-estimated, as it is evident to any who understand it 
that our present coffee has degenerated to a great extent 
and become unlike the original coffee introduced ; 
that at present it only lasts a few years (independent 
of diseases), whereas the originally imported trees are 
still healthy and vigorous; and which shows plainly 
enough that if we would grow coffee to pay we must be 
more careful where we get our seed from. The advan- 
tages to accrue from getting fresh seed into this divi- 
sion are more than any other; because our lands will 
grow plenty of coffee, but very little land is suitable 
for sugar. No less than 6,000 lb. of parchment seed 
would do, so as to give all the planters a choice of seed, 
and as the planters could pay at the rate of Is. per lb., 
little loss will be felt by the Government, should it 
introduce it, as the whole community will be benefited 
by it. Unless such a step be taken, coffee will rapidly 
disappear, as each generation is getting we&ker and 
weaker : a result which will be very disastrous to 
many who have invested largely in the cultivation 
of coffee. Considering all the peculiarities of our 
climate, not a berry grown in Natal should be sown 
for seed, but every year a small portion of seed 
introduced, which, in a few years, would, we hope, 
present a different appearance than our plantations do 
at the present time, and must result in giving fresh 
life and energy to the enterprise." 
It is impossible to tell how far the practice of plant- 
ing from seed grown in the Colony and then again from 
seed grown from the succeeding trpes may have, tended 
to reduce the vigour of the plants and to induce diseases, 
but it is evident that the f-uit-producing power of 
trees (planted since about 1870 is not so great as it was 
before that time ; and further, that since then various 
diseases and inseots, which were previously unknown 
here, have attacked the plant. An insect, commonly 
known as the borer (the same pest which killed out 
entire estates in Southern India), first appeared on the 
driest part of some estates in the northern district of 
Victoria County, and spread with great rapidity over 
the plantations north of the Umgeni ; but there is no 
evidence to show that it has done any injury to the 
southward — in fact at the present time it is unknown 
at the Ifafa and Umzimkulu, where small and promising 
plantations now exist. By a strange coincidence, it 
appeared in the same year in Mysore, and a planter, 
telling his experience, says : — " The example of Ceylon 
planters has half ruined planting in many parts of 
India, and more than half ruined it in Mysore. In 
Ceylon there is never a month without rain, but in 
Mysore we have certain consecutive wet months, and 
many months of cloudless sky and parching winds 
from theNorth-East, which are dry, and managers of 
Ceylon experience, being engaged in India, obstinately 
refused to modify the method of cultivation suitable 
for one climate, when planting in another totally differ- 
ent, and out down all the trees. Sufficient Ceylon 
planters found their vvav to Mysore to cause enormous 
loss. The planters cut down the forest, and put in 
coffee ; then came dry seasons and sickly plants, and 
an insect called the borer, which aided in killing out 
entire plantation?.'' He goes on to say : — "For 
diseases we have the borer, the bug. rat, and rot. To- 
wards the end of 1866, in Nouthorn India, entire plan- 
tations perished. On cutting opeu the dried trees, the 
borer was found, and it was concluded that the borer 
was the sole cause of the death and the disease. The 
Government appointed a Commission to go after the 
borer, and a specimen was sent to London; but Mr. 
Lord came to the conclusion that the insect did not 
necessarily cause the death of the trees at all, as it 
lived on dead matter in the heart of the tree ; and 
that the insect, guided by instinct, laid her eggs under 
the bark of trees; sickly and predisposed to early death. 
Now. although the causes could not be understood by 
Mr. Lord, thev were clear enough to planters of experi* 
ence, and I pointed out in the Madras Times of the 
11th June, 1867, that the borer was an effect, and not a 
cause, and that if planters kept sickly, sapless trees, 
it would encourage insect life. The same thing having 1 
occurred in the larch plantations in England, the trees 
were pierced by the borer. It is not the insect that 
causes the disease, but the disease which causes the 
insect I have gone eo minutely into the matter of 
the borer, because in Southern India a notion prevailed 
that it was a special plague to the coffee, rendering the 
possibility of an estate existing a matter of doubt. 
But a planter need not dread this nor dry seasons, if 
by judicious cropping and high cultivation, he keeps 
his plants in vigour." 
This pest alone renders it very doubtful if it is 
possible to grow coffee in large plantations, on the old 
system, in any part of Victoria County, until some 
remedy or preventive is discovered. This, however, 
does not seem yet to have been achieved, though the 
Commissioners have had some suggestions on the subject. 
The grub is propagated by a beetle of nocturnal habits, 
that lays its eggs on the bark of the tree, at half an 
inch from the ground, which it then protects with a 
gummy suhstance that becomes hard when dry. As 
this is about the same colour as the bark and surrounding 
earth, about one-twelfth of an inch across, it cannot 
be seen without close inspection ; and in eighteen 
months after the pest first becomes visible ; a hole a 
quarter of an inch in diameter appears on the side of 
the tree, and the antennas 'of the perfect beetle pro- 
trude. During this time the mischief has been done; 
the egg having been quickly hatched into a maggot, 
and the latter having worked its way down, inside the 
bark, to the roots, and, after destroying the covering 
of these, returned up the centre of the stem and 
bored its way out as described. 
During our tour of inspection, we found the borer on 
every plantation in Victoria County that we visited ; 
and on two of the largest plantations a system was being 
tried of not pruning, but allowing the trees to bear three 
to four crops and then re-planting, as by that time they 
were supposed to become so injured by the borer as to 
be unable to bear, and to die out. The managers of 
these estates are very sanguine as to the probable 
results ; and on the estate of Riet Valley, belonging to 
the Natal Land and Colonization Company, every 
possible care is evidently being taken to ensure success. 
We are, however, unable to give an opinion, adverse 
or favourable, for the present, and it would be unfair 
to do so, as the commercial success of this method of 
cultivation cannot be known for at least two years ; 
and we look forward with great interest to the result 
which, if it is successful, cannot fail to have a most 
encouraging effect, in reviving and stimulating the cul- 
tivation of coffee in the Colony. 
Among the many causes which contributed to failure, 
were the over-sanguine expectations entertained by the 
planters, founded on their great success during the 
first four or five years, when, in some cases, as much 
as 20cwt. of clpaned coffee per acre was gathered. 
Whether it was a reason or not, it is impossible to tell, 
but the fact remains that the trees which produced 
these crops were raised from imported seed, or from 
trees of only one or two removes ; and when such large 
crops ceased, Rugar was taken up with, as at once 
offering a quicker return. 
Another cause which, from the evidence, is considered 
to be important in preventing permanent success on 
large estates is that, coffee beins a plant whose natural 
hahiiat is the hill districts of tropical latitudes, the 
seasons in our climate are not sufficiently marked for 
it, and the tree has a tendency to lose its season, or, 
