June 1, 1901.] 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
851 
has been scorched in the naraery, when the 3hade has 
been too suddenly removed, instead of being thinned 
oS gradually, or it has been scorched in the field. In 
any case, it should be cut down, when a fine healthy 
sucker will spring up, onhj if cut below all the diseased 
spots, many of which are often found in the stem 
but more freqently at the joints which are unnaturally 
thick and cankered-looking in most plants. 
The natives are well aware of the damage done to 
coffee plants by the white grub and when I have taken 
up a dead or dying plant, to examine it, that has been 
thrown away to make room for a supply , I have had 
my planters volunteer the information that it was the 
work of the '' fiiitsi, " also that they are very destruc- 
tive in their chineauga, Indian corn gardens, and, when 
asked what remedy they adopt, "Oh! none,"i3thereply, 
"we kill them with the head of our hoe-handle. " 
There is great difficulty in getting plants, especially 
if they are small when put out, to come on in rich 
hollows the first year, principally owing to the ravages 
of grnba ; but when once the coffee tree gets a sufficient 
quantity of roots for the grub to feed upon we have 
our finest coffee there, with a soil almost inexhaus- 
tible. 
The black grub, another common enemy of all 
vegetables, the larva of a black moth, does much harm 
in those hollows ( where the wash from the surround- 
ing lands collect^ by eating the hark of Ihe coffee 
plants, and should be destroyed both in nurseries 
and field. — Yours truly. H. B, 
IV. 
REMEDY FOR BLACK GRUB. 
Deab Sir, — Young planters, and perhaps old onesi 
may benefit by my relating what appears to me the only 
remedy for grub, and the method I have followed 
ever since I came to this country to get rid of them. 
In the first plaoe, when going over a plot for a 
nursery, make the workmen kill all the white and black 
grub they discover, or better still give the men a 
few jam or butter tins to put them into, or have one 
or two boys for collecting and have them brought 
home to feed your ducks. This will do an immense 
amount of good in clearing the ground of a pest 
and would assuredly render a disappointing nursery, 
in most instances, a success. 
When fiUing-in the holes in a new clearing it 
would well repay all planters to give a small re- 
ward of some kind for all the grub brought in by 
the labour force, for it is surprising the quantity 
they will secure in this way ; whereas if no reward 
is given they are too indifferent to see the utility 
of master's demand, or order, to kill the grub. If 
this work is carefully attend to, there will be few 
supplies wanted and the young plants will not suffer 
by root trimming which so often proves fatal. 
It may be said or imagined by some that the 
burn will destroy all the grub and other insect 
life on a now clearing, but this is not the case 
with the white grub, unless the fire is a very strong 
one, such as rages in a virgin forest clearing, but 
there are few of these cleared for coffee in B. C. A. 
and all grass lands are full of grub, and the fires 
on grass and thin forest land are not strong enough 
to kill grub two or three inches under the surface, 
besides the ' fungi ' is to be found from a foot to 
eighteen inches under the surface in free soil. 
There are fewer grub in forest than in bush 
land ; that is one of the reasons why coffee makes 
such rapid progress in new clearings of the former 
description — and there are so few vacancies. 
A coffee clearing that has been grubbed carefully 
when felling m, usually, with our superior soil and 
forcing climate, during the rainy months makes 
rapid progress and looks promising and healthy, 
if pliinted with gaod plants, and early in the season ; 
but after a year or eighteen months' growth, many 
plants are seen hanging back, looking yellowish, 
and sickly, and the planter cannot fathom the reason 
for it. Now I shall tell you what to do ; arm a few 
boys with aharp pointed sticks to dig at the roots 
of the sickly yellowish plants, in all.sneh patches, 
and grub will invariably be found to be busily at 
work and not a root is to be found except the 
large prima.iy ones, and even they are bei-'g barked 
most carefully by the grub, many of which are 
sometimes found sticking to the bark, busily at work, 
when unearthed. 
I have seen this myself when watching the boys at 
work amongst my young coffee after the grub have 
been removed ; ihe coffee looks' worse than before 
for a time, but soon recovers. 
It sometimes happens, however, those patches 
of sickly-looking coffee is not the work of the gvnh 
at all, but weakly black-hearted plants, perhap, 
the gleanings of a nursery which the coolie 
reluctantly keeps in his hand till the last ; and when 
good plants are not supplied to him in they go, 
which is much to be regretted, as they never make 
healthv trees unless cut down and the diseased part 
cut off. This plan of cutting down does not always 
result in a healthy sucker, as it sometimes happens 
that the disease is in the root portion of the plant, 
or below where where it is cut, in which case it 
will never become a good coffee tree, and it will 
always produce diseased beans, I think, to a much 
greater extent thon coffee trees iwhich have been 
otherwi o> e weakened or damaged. 
I don't thS.nk that it will be borne out by experiment 
that the diseased bean so prevalent amongst our coffee 
is inherent in our coffee, but that it is caused by our 
system of cultivation ; and that, although diseased^ 
beans are planted in a nursery, I believe they will not 
produce diseased plants, for they don't grow at alias 
a rule, and any that do spring should never be put out 
in a clearing. 
From the fact that young coffee always produces 
a sound crop, I think it requires no further proof that 
the diseased beans are produced through natural causes 
— I am simply relating my observations, and what ex- 
perience has made me believe is the truth ; but it is 
more the work of a scientific observer to decide the 
cause of diseased beans than the planter. After the 
grub has been removed from young cofTee, if other 
conditions are favourable, a wonderful improvement 
takes place. I may mention another cause of yellow 
plants is poor soil, which has not got vegetable humus 
enough in it to support even grub, and not a single one 
is to be found near the roots. Of course that land 
ought never to have been put in coffee, and the sooner 
it is abandoned, the better for the proprietor, 
The heavier the soil is, the fewer grub are to be 
found in it, and in clayey soils that bind like a brick 
on the surface I doubt whether any would be found 
at all, although this sort of soil in B.C.A. produces 
the soundest coffee. » 
There is a great deal in the selection of land in this 
country for coffee ; this faot I have only after years of 
experience found out ; this is not my subject, however, 
in this paper. 
When coffee trees attain their full size or come to 
maturity, or full bearing, say at six years old, I firmly 
believe that no grub in the soil does the trees any 
harm. I have dug some 20 or 30 from the roots of ' 
one single coffee tree, whereas I have never found 
more than half a dozen or so here. 
The natural etjemies of grub are far too numerous 
here, and coffee estates too scattered, and limited for 
them to become, for many years at least, a serious pest 
on our old coffee fields. Shade helps us again here; 
where we have a carpet of decaying leaves in a- shade 
clearing, it provides the natural and preferable f jod for 
such grub, and they fatten and thrive on the humus thus 
formed instead of seeking live roots to feed npou. 
A shade clearing is also an aviary of biids'iD B.O,A. 
any many other enemies of the grub, including ar.ts' 
are to be seen under shade ; Vv-hereas in an open 
clearing crows are about the only friend we have got in 
clearing grub, and they can only get at the grub by 
following the weeders. 
In conclusion, anybody who wants to study grub 
and its ravages may find much interest in perusing 
Nietner's little handbook, published by the Ceylm 
Observer, also some nrther information on grab in 
