mr I, 1901.1 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
785 
The fine feeding white rootlets' vitality is I am certain 
destroyed ; ia fact, strange to say, very few feeding 
roots aie to be found near the sarfaoe oa our fields of 
coffee on this account, bat with shade or in a wet 
climate a singular network of coffee fibrous feeding 
roots is to be found on or near the surface. 
The great heat caused by the sun shining on bare 
land increased with hot winds during our hot and 
almost rainless September, Oatcber, and November, 
mon hs does a great amount of damage to our soil, 
as well as coffee, by exhausting the fertilizing ingre- 
dients, which would or should go to benefit the grow- 
ing crops on the land. This fact is well borne out by tlie 
difficulty we b ve in getting supplies to grow the 
second or third year ; also in this simple fact, viz — 
when a native hoes a garden in September for a crop of 
cereals, he does not burn it off till just before he sees 
the rain is coming, but on the other hajd should a 
bush fire by accident run into his garden, he assuredly 
abandons that garden and hoes another, for he well 
knows the nitrogen soon vanishes from exposure to 
one or two months' sunshine before the rains with 
which only he is able to plant. Very friable soils 
retain the heat of a day's sunshine all night and in 
fact is seldom cool in October and November and no 
Analysing Chemist is required to prove the damage 
done, under such cduditions, to our best soils through 
exposure. 
It can be easily seen now rich our sonls are in fer- 
tilising ingredients from the flora they support and 
the rich harvests of Indian corn and millet they 
produce, crops which a poor soil will not even 
grow ; but those almost inexhaustible soils, (which 
nature never intended to be exposed to the full 
force of our tropical sun) in the course of a few years 
must be allowed to run to bush and be covered, to 
once more renew its fertility— not lost so much by 
the feeding of a few crops of cereals ashy exposure 
and wash which does not happen from covered land. 
It may be said that a good field of coffee covers the 
land, and it should do so ; but unfortunately coffee, 
as far as I have seen, never covers the soil in this 
country. 
It jieeds no scientist to tell us that- the sous on our 
coffee estates are wanting in nitrogen and other 
organic ingredients after some years' exposure; on 
the other hand we also need no scientist to show or 
prove to us that most of our soils are the very 
richest to be found in Africa or elsewhere. Bat what 
we do want to know is, how we can best take care 
of our rich soils, preserve their fertilizing properties, 
and renew them f .r the benefit of the growing pro- 
duct on the land and of man. 
It need hardly be doubted that shade trees do all 
this for us to a great extent.— Then why bare our 
lands entirely for coffee cultivation ? H. B, 
II. 
BORER AND GRUB. 
Dear Sir, — Borer is one of the worst enemies of on r 
coffee and it escaped my observation til! 1893 ; nnd well 
do I remember the first beetles I ssw and seized on 
a Momba, bark cloth tree, in the month of Novem- 
ber of that year. This longicorn or stag beetle: v as 
no stranger "to me in Ceylon, although the speci- 
men in that island is darker in colour, glossy, and 
alto^^ether a huridsomer insect than ours is here. 
The^damage done in Ceylon was only very limited 
and confined pdacipally to the drier districts, and 
in those districts, only round the edges of the 
forest and grass lands. 
IN TRAVANCORE 
at low dry elevations I sa» much damage done to 
coffee, in fact every other tree suffering from the 
ravages of what was said to be the same borer ag 
oiirs." A coffee expert introduced to me by thg 
manager of one of our JocsJ companies assured me 
the Indian borer is the larva of & fljj \ Query, is 
this so ! '? 
Well, to proceed with our borer, the beetle is a dirty 
slate colour, not numerous by any means in its 
natural element, for it is raiely met with. This is no 
doubt accounted for by the bush fires destroying the 
beetles, when they are fully formed or nearly so 
and ready to fly in October and November but still 
confined in the cavity of woody fibre, in which they 
remain for about three months, being changed from 
the grub to the beetle ; besides, natural enemies in 
the forests and grass lands evidently keep the num- 
ber limited. 
As there are no bush fires on a coffee estate and 
few if any natural enemies the stag beetle finds a 
luxurious and very 
COMFORTABLE HOME FOR PROPAGATING, 
feeding on the bark ; the grub, boring in the wood and 
msking its nest in the stem of the coffee and emer- 
ges thence a full-fledged beetle in the course of 12 
months, and in the course of a few years they be- 
come go numerous (for each female lays from six 
to seven eggs) that a regular niirsery is made of a 
coffee plantation till you can gather a hatful of the 
beetles in the course of an hour, and the ravages of the 
borer become so great, that an estate maybe abandoned 
in the course of 8 or 10 years, unless steps are taken 
to save it. The earlier this work is attended to on a 
plantation the better for the owner. I therefore 
consider it worthy of my time to tell mv fellow planters, 
who may know nothing of the ravages of the borer 
in B. C. A., h'ow to prevent the gieat amount of 
damage done, which only becomes visible after yeari 
of laljour in bringing a coffee tree to its prime, and 
supplying a breeding garden for longicorn beetles 
and their larvaa. 
D jRING THE FIRST YEAR'S WORK 
on a coffee estate the planter need not trouble about 
borer, beginning work say in June and planting up in 
February, the beetles only being in existence from 
say 20th November to 20th February (for they 
only live three months) they are never seen on a new 
clearing. 
The second year when the plants are about 20 inches 
to three feet high the trouble begins, and not later than 
15th November a few boys, according to acreage should 
be told off to search for beetles, and go over the 
garden, marching up and down line after line of coffee 
daily, to the end of the beetle season in February- 
March ; the boys usually bring in one or two each 
daily, all through the season, and a young planter 
will crow and say " Now I have saved so many coffee 
trees and not_ a borer exists on my estate"; but he ia 
mistaken. The borer beetle 
NEVER FLIES DURING THE DAY-TIME 
unless tormented till it is obliged to take to its wings, 
but sits quietly feeding off the coffee bark, usually 
on the sunny side of thei plant, till dusk. It then 
flies off to another and another tree, visiting seyaral, 
perhaps, during the one night and the habit seems 
to be to lay an egg in the soil, by making a small 
cavity near the stem at the bottom of the tree. 
I however am open to correction as I have never 
found an egg either on the ground or on the 
tree, although I have found many a beetle on the 
coffee trees and searched for eggs. Boys however 
assert that the 
are laid in the ground 
and aa it is the natural habit of the beetle family 
to lay eggs in the giound, I believe them. Only one 
egg seems to be laid at or near each coffee tree by 
one beetle, although others may lay in the same place ; 
for when the beetle? become numerous oa old planta- 
tions three or four grubs may be found on one sten^of a 
coffee tree. I have not however found more than one 
borer in each tree daring the first year, and usually two 
or three' affected trees appear where a beetle has been 
caught. 
On old properties where coffee is riddled with 
borer I have seen boys gather a hat-ful of beetles in |^ 
