July 1, 1900,J THE TROPICAL 
To the Editor. 
COFFEE PLANTING IN NYAS3ALAND 
BY AN EX-CEYLON PLANTER. 
Mlanji, B.C. Africa. 
Dear Sir, — Your letter of 9dIi February came 
duly to hand. I sliall send .specimens of our 
spotted buj; to Mr. Green's friend in Surrey, 
England. From experiments carried on by myself, 
iniprisoninw our bugs in a muslin bag with newly 
formed berries, medium sized, and fully matured 
.one-, I liud that the bugs, punctuiing the young 
fruit up to two months or so, damage lliem and 
by sucking the juice, producing black and empty 
berries after two months and up to four inontiis; the 
, berries when damaged by bugs are spotted black 
and brown, not entirely destroying the fruit. 
Wiien the parchment forms after four niontlis or 
so no d amage appears to be done by this bug. The 
natural enemy of this bug is the soldier ant, 
idenlieal with our Ceylon tiger. I have had a 
bug put beside those ants and they devoured it 
ravenously. 
This bug is blamed in British Central Africa 
for causing so much unsound coffee. We 
are troubled with much worse enemies, how- 
ever : borer and periodical droughts which do 
tiie maximum of damage to our coffee. Some 
old estates where no bug is to be found have 80 
to 90 per cent spotted and light berry caused by 
those enemies. Shade mitigates those two 
evils, fosters the red ant and other 
natural enemies of our insect pests and is a 
cure for sunstroke and canker in our cofi'ee fields. 
It will take a year or two yet to tell what 
the result of shade will be on cofi'ee here. So 
far, however, it beats all I have ever seen any- 
where. From two year old ti ees I picked off two 
leaves and enclose thorn for your inspection, 
measuring green 9 by 4 inches. I do not think 
Arabica coffee leaves can be found in Ceylon to 
beat those. This coffee, two years old or two years 
and eight months from seeti, is being topped at 
0 feet 6 inches and it has a crop just ripening 
on the trees of about 1 cwt. per acre. Coffee, in 
the open here, yields a heavy crop or two : 
7 to 8 cwt per acre is common enough, and 10 
cwt has been secured at three and four years 
old; but sooner or later it gets such a scorching 
that it never recovers and must be cut down or 
abandoned. Cutting down even does not always 
prove a success as the trees are often damaged 
right into the ground especially in very light 
friable soil. 
I am trying to get up an acreage of tea and 
have now got 12 acres planted with a very gcod 
jftt. I was a long time in the country before 
1 learnt how to keep good, health here : the ser'cij 
is quinine taken wlisnever I feel I want it and 
most old residents can tell when quinine is 
wanted. One gets heavy ami it's a trouble to go 
about and attend to one's work; then is the time to 
take freely of quinine and an opening dose or two. 
] often remember how true William 
Smith the Patriarch of Diniliula's words 
were, when he said to me jusi- before leaving 
f-or Africa : '' Keep your quinine bottle on 
your side-table or side-boan.l and take a dose any 
day, the same as you would your early tea. I had 
to do so when living in Kurunegala and Africa 
must be as bad." 
6 
AGRICULTURIST. i\ 
Whyte is now in Uganda : he kept very good 
health when here ; Lloyd, Tunbridge, Moggridge 
and others, who came from Ceylon, seem to keep 
good health, they all know of course, how to 
live in the tropics. Those who have brokea 
down in this country are mostly young men who 
ought never to have come here at all or those 
who won't learn how to live here and no ex- 
perience teaches them either. I have been home 
once and that only for two months during my 
ten years in Mlanji. It was not owing to ill- 
health that [ went home. I landed in Ceylon 
in 1872 and never left till I came to Africa in 
1890. My S. D. days were spent in Dimbula 
trailer the late James Kyan, opening Glenomera 
and Stirling, and when the estates were leased 
to H. S. S. & Co., I went to Matale. Alost of 
the men in Dimbula in my day, have either left 
or gone over to the majority ; few remain who 
were at the ball given to Sir Wm. Gregory in 
Middleton Store and were photographed on the 
patana afterwards. I was o\-qx the Nyassaland 
Co. Lirchemya's Estate the other day and think it 
should pay its way from now and make some- 
thing for the shareholders in about two years' 
time If carefn Uy managed. 
The war does not affect us yet, but it is very 
probable we shall be joined to South Africa with 
the B, S. A. Co. territory, all under one Govern- 
ment, and get our railway, etc., after the war is 
over. Salaams ! — Yours sincerely, 
HENRY BROWN. 
A NEW (?) INSECT PEST IN CEYLON. 
Dear Sir, — I read in the Atickland Ncivs 
that importers of plants from Japan are 
warned against the introduction of a scale 
insect known as Dias/ris amygdali, which is 
said to be a dangerous pest and may even 
outstrip the alarming San Jose scale. The 
insect in question first attracted attention in 
the United States, " where it was found to 
be a serious pest on the plum and the peach ; 
also on almond trees and tea bushes, which 
had been imported from Japan. In the 
latter country, it has been found destructive 
to the mulberry trees. In Ceylon it is partial 
to the Pelargonium, and it feeds on many 
species of plants." 
Seeing that the native habitat of the Pelar- 
gonium has no connection with Ceylon, the 
plant being only grown for ornament round 
upcountry bungalows, the location of the scale 
here is probably a mistake. Could you kindly 
enlighten us as to this ? — Yours faithfully, 
X. 
[We have referred the matter to Mr. E. E. 
Green, the Govfernment Entomologist, who 
kindly sends us the following : — " Diaspis 
amygdali is a common scale-insect in Ceylon — 
see ' Coccidae of Ceylon,' Part I, p. 87, Plate 
xxiv. It is particularly noticeable on Gera- 
nium plants s;rown imder shelter of verandah 
or eaves of bungalows, whei-e the masses of 
small white scales (of the male ijisect) appear 
like white mildew on the stems of the plants. 
It also affects many indigenous plants, e.g., 
Callicarpa Janata, Ti/lnphora, astlimatica, etc. 
Curiously, although it occasioirally occurs on 
cultivated peach trees in Ceylon— it does not 
seem to flom'ish^n that plant in this country. 
It earned its specific name from its destruc- 
