June i, 1894.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
847 
■ " » 
To tht Edittr. 
COCONUT CULTIVATION IN CEYLON ; 
AND HOW TO DEAL WITH DEADLY 
RED (KANDAPANUWA) BEETLE, 
(Jiy the Oldest Planter left to us.) 
Deab Sib, — Having recorded my experiance in 
Coconut Cultivation in the columns of the Tropical 
Agriculturist, as I acquireJ it during upwards of 30 
years, I intended to keep silence on that subject in 
the future, and would not have troubled you now, 
but for the reports you have lately published about 
the ravages of the Kandapanuwa in the Chilaw 
district which display almost incredible ignor- 
ance on the part of those in charge of estatss 
on this part of their duty. I therefore once more 
take up my pen to restate what I know regard- 
ing this pest, which can best be done by stating 
how I learned to deal with the Kandapanuwa. 
It is now nearly forty years since I look up 
my first obarga of a coconut field. The weevil 
had been quite as destructive then as it now 
appears to be in the new district, and great efforts 
had been made to combat it with the result of 
increasing rather than diminishing its ravagfs. 
The system was to send a couple of coolies 
cattle lu hand to search for the trees in which 
the grub was at work. This was done by hacking 
off leaves, in which process wounds were made in 
the rmd, ar.d the stems were openei to the weather 
whilo too tender to siand it without cracking. 
When the presence of the grub in a tree was 
clearly aacertoiued," they set to work with chissl and 
mallei to dig them out and they were never at a 
loss for a job. 
In my ignorance which was at the first 
quite as profuund as that of any modern Deduru 
Oya planter, 1 oarritd out the established system 
for some lime; but, finding things getting v\oise 
instead of better, 1 began to bavo doubts about 
iti being the ri)<ht thiug. I tbeu btgan to study 
the iubjeat for my^eU and observe facts. I found 
that aJjoining native gardens of the same egf, 
but that had been left to grow up in jungle, had 
not lost a plent from this cause. I nest satis- 
fied mysell tbat the weevil's means of attack was 
unequal to the task of penetrating the ripened 
rind of a coconut stem. 1 founJ digging out the 
grubs an ulter failure, eveiy tree so treated per- 
ished except such as had become already too 
hard, for further operations had in fact ceased 
to be suitable food. On those facts I acted, I 
slopped the catty work, I stopped digging out, and 
confined operations to chopping up the afieotod 
trees and destroying every visible giub thoy con- 
tained, as well as the mature insects which were 
almost as numerous as the grubs. At first the 
chopped up stems were left on the grouod, but in 
B few days I found them full of young grubs. 
After this they wtre treated with fire, but even 
that did not daler the insect from using them 
for a breeding ground, so after scathing them nith 
fitf , they were buried under three feet of earth. 
From the time that the old method w.is sioppul, 
the loss gradually dimini:;hed, and in three mouths 
oeaeed altogether. 
107 
As the red weevil cannot penetrate the ripened 
rind of the coconut tree, it can only effect an 
entrance by a natural defect, an accidental wound 
on injudicious interference on the part of the 
planter, with the calural development of the 
tree by way of helping it on. To guard against 
such fractures of the rind, we must begin at the 
beginning by digging holes three feet deep and 
placing the plant, so that the crown of the root 
shall not be less than two feet below the surface. 
Shallow planting — in good soil, espfcially— forces the 
stem into a bulbous form at the base; this abnor- 
mal expansion splits the succulent leaf stems at 
the baEe, and those leaves aSord sufficifnt food for 
the grub, till it is strong enough to eat through 
the fibrous rind of the main stem. Then the 
plant having no space under ground to throw out 
roots proceeds to form them above ground, thus 
causing a serifs of cracks, in the hard rind all 
round on the surface ; of which the ever-watchful 
weevil at once avails itself, to deposit its eggs. 
Nothing of this kind occurs, when the plant has 
sufficient length of stem underground to produce 
all the roots it requires, accidental wounds of the 
stem are then rare ; but the system of trimming the 
trees, is the most dangerous proceeding of all. 
The imbrication of embracing leaves, that natur. 
ally cling most tenaciously to the stem, in the 
earlier stages of growth, till they rot and dropoff 
piecemeal, protect not only the stem, but the 
younger leaves, till they are sufficiently hardened 
to stand the weather and defy the enemy. This 
arrangement should on no account be interfered 
with. 
No skill and watchfulness can avert the loss of 
an occasional tree, if there are any weevils in the 
vicinity ; but not an hour should be lost in deal- 
ing with the tree in which they have eSeoted a lodge- 
ment, Eo that not a single perfect insect may emerge, 
A war of extermination is the only way to secority; 
and if every proprietor in the affected district join 
heart and hand in the campaign, the enemy will 
be cleared cut in six months. 
That a neg'ested jungle-grown coconut field is 
a breeding giound for the weevil is a mistake ;— so 
long as they have a cleared field to operate on, 
they never go into the jungle. I do not recollect 
a case of an attack on a tree surrounded by jungle. 
An Entomologist by all means ; but that will take 
time, and immense further damage may be done 
in the meantime, even if he or she should show 
any less drastic method of combating the enemy 
than the destru;t'.on of every tree successfully 
attacked by the insect. No objection to a law 
on this, when the lawgivers have a perfect know- 
ledge of the subject, when they certainly know 
the cause and the remedy. We have the example 
of the Straits Heltlemeuta in this very matter. 
They there made a law imposing heavy penaltiea 
on dunghills as the breeding ground of the Kuru- 
meiiia that only deals with the leaves, and left 
out of the measure any notice of the more deadly 
enemy, whose successful invasion of the tree is a 
death sentence. 
It is not a fact that the Kurumenia in any vr»y 
facilitates the operations of the Kandapanuwa ; the 
former feeds on the tender undeveloped leaves at 
the summit of the tree, the latter ou the substance 
of the stem, and there is a space of several feet 
between their respective fields of action, a Eort 
of neutral ground towards which the one works 
downwards and the other upwards, 
I am slow to believe that the weevil gets into 
bearing trees I have never seen it except where 
unwdirauUble liberties have butu t^vkiu with the 
leaves. 
W. B. L. 
