THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Feb. i. 1895. 
ary's correspondent is of Darjiling, and — he is "in" 
tea I and be, no doubt, imagines that he is doing a 
good turn to hie trade, while at the same time he 
lu playing the philantnropist to the cholera-scourged 
Hindu. Planters would seem at times to be simple folk 
to judge from their guileless proposals for booming 
their wares. The idea of pice packets of tea is 
on par with the idea of the Indigo-planter of 
last year who called on the "women of England" 
to dress in blue garments in order to bring a 
blessing on the poverty-stricken indigo-workers of 
Behar. Surely our contemporary's correspondent 
does not imagine, even if the pice packets were 6old, 
that the thirsty Native would give up drinking water 
altogether, except under the likeness teal and if he 
did, the directors would surely have to start a new 
crusade against the inordinate use of the teapot. 
But there is another thing to be anticipated. The 
Indian villager, like most people, seeks to get the 
most out of his money, and bis pice packets of tea 
would do duty over and over again before the leaves 
were thrown away, and the last state of the men 
with his over-boiled char would be almost worse than 
the first with his unboiled water. — M. Times, Jan. 15. 
AN INSECT ENEMY OF PLANTERS AND 
OTHER AGRICULTURISTS. 
We have to plead forbearance for another 
late issue of the Tropical Agriculturist ; but the. 
reason is one of so much general interest that 
we feel sure allowance will be made. The delay 
has been due to a desire to enable Mr. E. E. 
Green of Pundaluoya to make as full as cir- 
cumstances permitted, the notice with which he 
has favoured us of what he calls " an important 
insect enemy " and one which he thinks planters 
and other agriculturists in Ceylon should be on 
the watch to guard against. It is known to 
entomologists as " (Jrthvzia insignia (Douglas)" 
and is supposed to have come to Peradeniya 
(where Dr. Trimen has observed and described 
it) from Kew. Like so many of our insect 
enemies, this is one of the scale bugs so painfully 
familiar to our coffee planters in their various 
popular forms of 'white,' 'black' and 'green' 
bug ; and although Dr. Trimen thinks the present 
one chiefly a garden pest and does not at all 
fear its spread; yet we think his brother 
planters should acknowledge Mr. Green has 
taken the right course in affording a full des- 
scription of the insect at this early stage, and 
in supplying sketches of no less than live figures 
which we have had carefully lithographed (to 
accompany Mr. Green's little monograph) through 
the courtesy of the Surveyor-General. These 
figures shew briefly : — Fig. 1 represents a twig 
with the bugs in situ, natural size. Fig. 2, a 
half-grown female, upper side highly magnified. 
Fig. 3 shows the under-side of an older female 
insect, greatly enlarged. Fig. 4 represents a still 
more advanced stage (side view) in which the 
ovisac has attained its full length. Fig. 5 is 
a greatly enlarged figure of the male insect. 
For the full description together with ample 
details as to prevention and remedies we must 
refer planters to the Tropical Agriculturist for 
this month, January. "To be forewarned is to 
be forearmed," more particularly as Mr. Green 
indicates effective means of fighting, clearing out 
and exterminating this new bug should it appear 
on or near any plantation or garden. It has 
already shown a decided liking for lantana, and 
would probably develop the same for the nilu, 
cinchona and coffee plants if it got the oppor- 
tunity. 
But, perhaps the most interesting part of Mr. 
Green's paper is the account he affords us 
(partly from official reports and partly on the 
authority of Mr. Koeble himself now in the 
island) of the wonderful extermination of bug 
from the orchards and gardens of California 
rough the introduction of "lady birds" (beetles) 
by Mr. Koeble from Australia. When we visited 
California in 1884 we carried by special re- 
quest, a sample of our dire coffee iungu« 
(hemileia castatrix) in a way that it should 
not escape abroad (!) to Professor HirkHOM 
of the Academy of Sciences, San rrau- 
cisco. He was intensely interested in the fungus 
and in our ten years' fruitless conflict with it; 
and in return he shewed us specimens of fungi 
and other enemies which hail wrought destruction 
among fruit-tree, in several State* of the Union 
—among the rest shewiug how cherry trees had 
been rendered fruitless or killed out over & large 
area, and he spoke very seriously of the wuy in 
which " scale bug was even then (1884) baffling 
the efforts of orchard-owners in California. Mr. 
Green tells us how matters came to a climax in 
1888— fruit-growers thought they were ruined- 
whole orchards were white with the pest ; and it 
was then that the Government got Mr. Albert 
Koeble (Assistant in the Department of Eco- 
nomic Entomology) to go to Australia— the 
original home ot this particular enemy, " fluted 
scale," to collect and export the parasites of 
the pest. Mr. Koeble did better— lie found a 
small beetle which greedily fed upon the scale 
insect and for the extraordinarily successful re- 
sult of his mission thereafter, we must refer to 
the details in the paper under review. Suffice 
it to say here that in this and another trip to 
Australia, Mr. Koeble found beetles which have 
devoured and cleared out scale-bugs of all des- 
criptions from the California!) orchards — so that 
an industry which was threatened in 1888 with 
entire destruction (like our own coffee) is now 
perfectly clean of the bug enemies and thoroughly 
established on a flourishing basis ! Surely 
never was there a greater triumph, or more 
romantic experience, in the scientific world ; 
and surely also, steps should be taken with 
the advice (if not aicf) of Mr. Koeble and Mr. 
Green to get the proper parasite for ' ' green bug" 
still such an enemy of our remaining coffee in 
Haputale ? At any rate, we feel sure all 
thoughtful planters will agree that Mr. E. E. 
Green has done the community a real service, 
in taking up his pen and pencil at this time to 
describe a new insect-foe which has already 
found a lodgment on the thres hold, shall we say, 
ef the planting districts, and which, notwithstand- 
ing precautions taken, may spread and appear 
suddenly elsewhere ; but which, after studying 
this paper and illustrations, can be readily 
recognized and as readily dealt with and exter- 
minated—thanks to Mr. Green's remedies— by 
any planter on the lookout, as all planters 
ought to be, for strange and unwelcome visitors. 
RESOURCES OF MADAGASCAR. 
j At the Balloon Society, last night, Captain E. 
W. Dawson lectured on the commerce and in- 
ternal resources of Madagascar. Mr. John Had- 
i don presided. The lecturer maintained that the 
1 island has a great future before it. being capa- 
ble, by reason of its soil, climate, and formation, 
of yielding in profusion all the most valuable 
products of the. temperate and torrid zones It 
needs, he remarked, only British capital and en- 
terprise to reap one of the richest harvests in a 
country where Englishmen are welcomed. The 
