PRICKLY PEARS NOW WILD IN INDIA. 
1807. The East India Company realising that they could not 
make a profit out of their dealings in cochineal began to withdraw their 
encouragement, and stopped it after 1810. 
1807. Renewed proposals to obtain cochineal ^‘grana fina from 
South America ; Opuntia cochinelifera suggested to be used as a nurse 
plant for it. 
182^1. G. A. Prinsep introduced the cochineal insect into Bombay 
from Campeche via London, possibly on Opuntia cochinelifera. Fate 
of experiment unrecorded. 
1822. G. A. Prinsep repeated his introduction. Fate of experi- 
ment unrecorded. 
1826 ? Perrottet brought the cochineal insect from Bourbon to 
Pondicherry and iV^served it for three generations. To Bourbon it had 
been brought in 1826 from Cadiz; and Cadiz had received it from 
America in 1820. 
1830 or earlier. Seed oi Opuntia el atior taken from Delhi to the 
Deccan by a traveller in a palanquin. 
1837. Wallich hearing that cochineal was in Bourbon, obtained 
some for Calcutta : it was pronounced grana Sylvester, though derived 
from a stock said to be grana fina, and apparently not cultivated. 
1837. Cochineal received in Calcutta from the Cape of Good Hope 
on rooted plants of Opuntia monacantha^ which was also pronounced 
grana Sylvester. 
1839. Opuntias so troublesome in the Deccan that an attempt 
was made in vain to extirpate them. About the same time Opuntia 
monacanika had become so troublesome in parts of the Punjab that 
fines were instituted against those who let it grow. 
1840. The Bourbon Nopal — apparently Opuntia cochinelifera — was 
vigorously propagated by the Agri-Horticultural Society in Calcutta 
in the hope of using it for a nurse plant for the grana fina insect which 
the Society was seeking to get. 
1844-52. The outbreak of the cochineal insect in the Punjab, 
most marked and most effective, as regards Opuntia monacantha. 
1861. One Opuntia, apparently 0. elatior, had just reached the 
neighbourhood of Deesa. 
1883. The Government of Madras re-introduced at Coimbatore 
the cochineal insect from Algiers, but the insects died after arrival, 
