838 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1889. 
of one millon lb. which have been included in the quan- 
tity available for export to Great Britain, say 102J 
million lb." 
Reuter's telegrams received during the fortnight report as 
follows : — 
Indian Tea. 
April 25th— Auctions.— Offered about 15,000 packages. Sold 
1,300 packages. Generally without material change. 
Tea Exports. 
Great Australia Sundry 
Britain, and New America. Ports. 
Zealand, 
lb. lb. lb. lb. 
To date our last 
circular 92,677,799 2,746,176 173,165 1,038,051 
April 2nd S. S, 
" Clan Grant" 12,154 
April 2nd S. S. 
" Lawada" ... ... ... 14,541 Bombay. 
April 4th S. S. 
" Golconda" 804 ... ... 98,500 Madras. 
April 4th S. S. 
" City of Venice" 1,891 
April 5th S. S. 
" Loodiana" ... ... ... 19,151 Bombay. 
April 6th S. S. 
"Nuddea" ... 10,685 
April 9th S. S. 
"Pundua" ... ... ... 25,300 Bombay. 
April 15th S.S. 
" India" 4.425 
"Vessels for Coast- 
ing Ports ... ... ... 5,865 
92,697,073 2,756,861 173,165 1,201,408 
Against last year83,140,323 2,420,925 43,563 843,823 
INDIAN TEA EXPOETS. 
We call attention to the interesting information 
afforded above by Messrs. Wm. Moran & Co. 
of Calcutta, in respect of Indian tea. The 
total outturn of the Indian tea districts 
for the season (1888-9) now closing has 
been 96,308,284 lb. against 86,791,845 lb. for 
1887-8, or an increase in round numbers of 
ten millions lb. The same proportion nearly holds 
good in regard to the export to Great Britain 
which was 92,697,073 lb. against 83,140,323 lb. 
But the great matter of interest now is the estimate 
for the new season 1889-90. This shows a total 
crop of 106,941,160 lb. or as nearly as possible 
another ten millions lb. in advance, and there is 
precisely the same increase in the quantity which is 
expected to be shipped to the United Kingdom. This 
is given at 102| millions lb. against a little over 
92J millions for the past season. 
With perhaps 42 millions of Ceylon tea to be S6nt 
in the same direction during the same period, there 
should be very little room for any 1 China' or ' Java' 
teas in the London market. Last year, the home 
consumption, it will be remembered, exceeded 
185,000,000 lb. of tea, ©f which India and Ceylon 
supplied about 105| millions, leaving less than 80 
millions for China and other kinds. This year, even 
allowing for an increase in the total consumption, 
there cannot be room for more than 45 millions 
lb. of China teas in the United Kingdom, excluding 
the re-export trade. This latter may dispose of some 
thirty millions lb. more of China and Java kinds. 
It must be very evident, however, that we are ap- 
proaching the " beginning of the end " of the China 
Tea trade with the London market. In Australasia 
and America, the fight may be protracted longer; 
but even there, India and Ceylon teas are bound to 
olear all competitors out of the field before many 
p^asons pass away. 
+ 
Tea Notes, April 30th.— Tea is doiDg well in Sibsau- 
gor. Tea prospects are good in Durruug. Seasonable 
weather is reported from Sylhet, Kamroop, Durruug, 
Sihsanger, and Luckimpore. Darjeeliug, 26 April. — 
Viol m thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rain — 
over an inch being registered on the evening of the 
23rd, since the bright sunshine. First flush nearly 
over aud more or lees disappointing. — Indian Planters' 
Gazette* 
COCONUT CULTIVATION AND THE 
" KANDA PANUWA :" 
BLACK AND BED BEETLES — HOW THEY CUT INTO 
THE STEM OF A TREE — THEIR PROPAGATION AND 
HOW TO DESTROY THEM — THE YOUNG GRUB — REME- 
DIAL PRECAUTIONS. 
(Communicated.) 
Those who had have no opportunities of observing 
the beetles injurious to the coconut tree, or who 
have made little use of such as they have had, 
are apt to be a little mixed in assigning their 
respective parts in the work of destruction te 
kuruminiya and kandapamiwa. Even Dr. Shortt 
in his monograph has figured the wrong beetle 
as the true kuruminiya — one endowed with a pair 
of horns longer than its body and which it would 
find a great inconvenience while eating into 
cabbage at the head of a coconut tree. 
The true kuruminiya is a black beetle, one of 
the largest of the tribe nearly as broad as long 
and almost hornless. Furnished with powerful 
mandibles it easily penetrates to the centre of 
the undeveloped leaves and causes the clipped 
and rugged appearance that may be noticed on 
nearly all coconut fields. It seldom kills a tree 
outright, and that enly a very young one 
before it has made stem. The grub, the big- 
gest and ugliest of the race, dwells in dung 
heaps or in any mass of rotten vegetable matter. 
The red beetle belongs to the coleopterian aris- 
tocracy. In its perfect form it is a pointed 
oval, one inch long with a strong frontal 
horn, and its dress a red coat with black facings. 
It needs no food and has in fact no feeding or 
digesting organs ; in the perfect state its sole 
business is propagating its species. It might be 
supposed that the use of the frontal horn was 
to penetrate the outer fibrous shell of the coco- 
nut stem, but on examination it is found unequal 
to this undertaking : it might with its powers as 
well try to bore a hole in a tombstone, as the 
main stem and the stem of the green leaf are 
equally impervious to its unaided effort. It has 
to search for a weak point such as an accidental 
wound that has gone through the outer fibrous 
rind, the splitting of a green sappy leaf at its base 
by the swelling of the main stem or the breaking up 
of the shell at the surface by the push of new roots ; 
but by far its most fruitful opportunities are those 
that arise from trimming the trees. 
From the first appearance of the stem above 
ground till it reaches a height of six feet or up- 
wards, the leaves do not detach themselves from 
the stem and drop as they wither and die, but 
continue to cling till they gradually rot and fall 
off piecemeal. This causes a ragged and untidy 
appearance disagreeable to the eye of taste and 
the tidy planter sets about remedying the blunder 
of nature, the fact being that the young expand- 
ing stem is tender and needs this imbricated cover 
till the fibrous rind becomes dense and hard 
enough to be safe in the open air. All young 
quickgrowing trees crack their rind more or 
less, but while they have the natural shield no harm 
happens. Remove that, the cracks become wider 
and deeper and the beetle can easily engineer a 
proper bed for its eggs. Besides this there is the 
danyi.-r of inflicting a wound on the stem which 
makes the entrance for th<- enemy the easier. 
When a lodgement has once been made in a 
tree that suits them all, the beetles in the neigh- 
bourhood resort thither and multiply with great 
rapidity, the fall of the tree being generally the 
first indication of their presence. I have taken 
150 grubs and beetles from a single fallen tree. 
When thoy are discovered before they have u'.'. rly 
destroyed the tree any attempt to save it is labour 
in vain. Chop it into chip3, destroy the whole 
