X 
CARDAMOMS 
345 
shoots and stems must be pulled off, but this does not 
amount to a very large percentage. 
It would of course be much easier to cut the racemes 
off, and clip the ripe fruits off afterwards, but by this 
means a great deal is wasted, as the unripe fruit on the 
raceme has to be thrown away. 
A good coolie accustomed to the work can pick from 
12 to 15 lbs. of fruit a day, but 8 to 10 lbs. is the average 
picking. 
PESTS 
The Cardamom Butterfly [Lampides elpis, Godart). 
— A complete account of this the worst pest of the 
cardamom plant is given in Indian Museum Notes, vol. 
i. p. 11, from observations made by Mr. T. C. Owen 
in the notes on cardamom cultivation, and from letters 
by Mr. E. Green. 
Mr. Owen writes : — 
Of the enemies which attack cardamoms the most serious is 
an insect which bores a circular hole in the capsules, and clears 
out the inside. Young plantations seem more liable to this pest 
than older ones. In the former case as much as 80 to 90 per 
cent will sometimes be attacked and destroyed in this way: 
proximity to patana seems also the cause of increased liability 
to these attacks. Applications of lime, wood ash, or anything 
of a like nature are said to be beneficial. 
Mr. Owen was unable to discover what the insect 
was that caused the damage, but Mr. Green succeeded 
in finding an adult larva in one capsule, and bred it out 
into the beautiful little blue butterfly, Lampides elpis, 
a very common insect over the Indo-Malayan region, 
occurring in India, Ceylon, Burma, the Malay Peninsula 
and Islands. 
The male butterfly is about 1^ in. across the wings, 
of a pale metallic azure blue on the upper side, with a 
narrow black border to both wings ; the hind wings 
have sometimes a series of black marginal spots, and 
there is always a short, black tail with a white tip near 
the anal extremity. 
