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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June 1, 1901. 
To the Eaitor. 
COFFEE IN B. C. AFRICA. 
III. 
SHADE AND BORER &c. 
Dear Sir. — Shade mitigates the borer evil to a great ex- 
tent; the beetles love basking in the sun ; but 1 find they 
do not object to shade either, although there are a few 
trees they evidently avoid, one especially so, which is 
standing in 6-year-old coffee which is riddled with 
borer, but not a coffee tree under " anjowa " — native 
name — was ever touched. There may be other trees 
distasteful to the longicorn beetle, and of course, 
t)iat tree, above all others (if otherwise suitable) should 
be selected as the shade tree for B. C. A. — N. B., by 
having a variety of shade on a coffee estate, 
it will soon be found out which trees ought to be 
selected and planted on account of borer. 
1 am perfectly well acquainted with a tew trees in 
our jungle which the borer breeds in , and of course, 
they must be an attraction to the beetles, and should 
he all felled when opening land for coffee. 
We have the branch borer also in B C A, the larva 
of a white moth that lays its eggs (only one at a time) 
usually on the budding leaf of a primary in a small 
web like that of a spider. When the egg hatches, 
the larva then enters the tender end of the shoot and 
makes its way along the pith of the branch till it 
reaches the trunk of the tree, workingd own the centre, 
making small air-holes as it goes along. In the course 
of a few months the ground is reached, where they 
turn into the chrysalis stage, usually about July or 
August, and emerge a full-fledged moth in January 
and February. 
This borer is easily detected by the end of the 
branch, where it begins to work, drying up. They begin 
to shew up about April and should be destroyed the 
same as the other borer. 
I have never seen a coffee tree over two years old die 
from the work of this borer, and as they are not very 
numerous they don'o make such a formidable enemy 
to the coSee as the stag-beetle larva does. 
I have found this borer working down the branch 
of a young forest tree, with a soft centre, just 
in the same way as in a coffee tree. I have also found 
the same red borer in Ceylon about the edges of the 
forest ;but the damage done there, aa well as here, is 
very slight, although the moth lays about 40 eggs. 
By the way I have never hatched this moth, so 1 
may be wrong; but the moth, a sluggish dirty white 
one, I have often caught amongst the coffee, and it 
seems identical with the Ceylon one, but I may have 
to stand corrected ; I may be wrong. 
I secured at different times the stem of a coffee tree 
with the borer in it and tried to hatch it; but it always 
died in the pupa stage— probably through the dry- 
ing up of the wood. I have also blocked up 
the hole in a coffee tree in the field with the 
borer in it, but he always managed to escape. 
I suppose I have tired your readers with drought 
and borer, and shall now turn to an enemy of the 
coffee tree, which is perhaps not generally known 
as such in B. C, A. although a most destructive 
and formidable one, both here and in other countries. 
WHITE GRUB. 
The fansi or funzi is the Mangarga for the com" 
mon white grub, tho larva of the bronze cock- 
chafer, whiclj I am about to try and describe as 
wen as depict the damage it does to our coffee. 
The beetle is bright-copper-coloured, about | inch 
long and inch broad, and the grub is of a yel- 
lowish white colour, and is bluish at the hinder 
extremity — obtuse and thick. When unearthed, the 
^rub curves into a circle ; it must be familiar to 
all observant planters who are present in the field 
when the earth is being turned over. 
As this ia the only cockchafer I have seen in 
B. C. A which does any harm to coffee, out of 
about 20 known specitne ns in the country, there 
can be no mistake made in identifying it. 
When the beetle appears, when it dies, and how 
long the grub lives in the ground, I cannot say ; for 
I have found beetles ready to fly, fully matured 
grub, the newly hatched grub, and the pupa all in 
the same coffee pit; when re-digging for supplies 
in the months of February, March and April. I 
should imagine, however, that thej beetle only flies 
at night, and lays from 24 to 30 eggs, about an inch 
under the surface of the ground; it is said to live 
and feed on the roots of \ny plants it comes aorosa 
in the soil. 
However long the grub may live, it does a great 
amount of damage to coffee, especially to young 
plants before they have made many roots, by eating 
• them up as fast aa they grow. 
I have been at war with this grub ever since I came 
to this country, and it was owing to my representing 
the terrible amount of damage done to nurseries 
and coffee in the field that one planter, so far back 
as 1892 or 1893, brought out a grubber with him, and 
tried hurd to get the turkeys, but he forgot all about 
the tree roota and stumps in the land. 
I remember, I think it was in 1873 or 1874, may have 
been later perhaps about 1876 or 1878, when leaf disease 
weakened the coffee so that the leaves after turning 
yellow blackened at the points, dropped, the wood 
died back with the crop on it, the blame waa all put on 
this grub. What was not done for gruli ? Everybody 
was grubbing, catching beetles by shaking cinchona 
trees at night, forking the ground, fetching the grub 
from the roots ot the coffee trees, and lime and chemi- 
cals were not stinted, but nothing saved the coffee 
from going out, in spite of every effort made by plan- 
ters to prevent it. Estates were stinking with manure, 
scientists were appointed, but nothing which man 
could devise or apply to the coffee tree stopped the 
ravages of leaf-disease, (for which there was no re- 
medy, and the weakening and ultimate abandonment 
of coffee as a remunerative inveatment, I remember. 
As a great deal of light, black, chipped, and empty 
berry was the result of leaf-disease caused by the 
weakening of the trees, as the branches died back 
annually, the roots also decayed ; and the 
white grub was blamed for the damage ; so might 
also our own white grub here be blamed for 
the same diseased state of our trees and their fruits. 
I have not the slightest doubt that the ravages of 
grub have a little to do with diseased beans ; but I can- 
not make myself believe that a coffee tree either here 
or elsewhere in good health and vigor, and in its 
prime, with an abundance of rootlets for grub to feed 
upon, would ever suffer to the same extent as Oeylon 
coffee did from leaf disease, or our coffee does lend from 
a combination of evils to produce an alarming amount 
of diseased beans, although I am well aware young 
coffee in the field as well as our nurseries suffer a good 
deal from root trimming. 
This grub is to be found in all cultivated land to a 
much greater extent than in land which is sterile, and 
the richer the land is in vegetable nurseries the more 
numerous they are ; instinct leads the beetles to seek 
the most friable, light, rich soils to lay their eggs, 
thus becoming the parasite of agriculture. 
In coffee nurseries when seedlings and plants are 
seen to dry up without any visible cause (when search 
ia made) it ia usually found to be the work of the white 
grub. On clearings one year old or so, when plants are 
seen looking yellow and unhealthy with variegated 
leaves, blackening the points, in some cases, it is 
invariably the work of the white grub, but not always 
so, for when examined sometimes not a grub is to be 
found at the roots; but when we cut down the plant and 
examine the stem it is found black-hearted, not neces 
sarily because it has few or no roots, or the tap roo 
turned, but because it is that of a diseased bean, or i 
