224 
As early as 1893-94, I began to lose an enormous number of 
coffee trees from the attacks of what everyone then called “white 
ants.” No remedies were apparently of any avail, though with 
some, notably “ London purple,” I succeeded in killing the tree 
a trifle sooner than the white ant did, and at last I came to the 
conclusion that the thing to do was if possible to destroy the 
queens, accordingly I offered a substantial reward for each queen 
brought to my Bungalow; this was the beginning of my experience 
of u digging,” numbers of coolies turned out every evening, 
attacked the mounds of which there were thousands every where 
and my original reward dropped with leaps and bounds as the 
queens began to come in, until even at 5 cents each the amount 
paid out became a very considerable item in my monthly expen- 
diture. To my great disappointment, however, there was no de- 
crease at all in the attacks upon my coffee, and, puzzled by this, 
I sent specimens to Mr. E. E. Green, a personal friend of mine 
and now, the Ceylon Government Entomologist. In due course 
I received the pleasing intimation that whilst the collection of 
queens, of which I had stated myself possessed, was exceedingly 
interesting as a monument of energy on the part of my coolies, 
its practical value was nil, inasmuch as it was clear from the 
specimens which I had forwarded that I was waging war against 
the wrong species ! This opinion having been confirmed by Mr. 
Ridley who identified the insects which were doing all the 
damage as termes gestroi, the queen of which he told me had been 
very seldom found, I gave up digging, and confined myself to 
cleaning the ants off the stems as far as possible and destroying 
what I could see, which did a certain amount of good, but not 
very much, as they often ate right up the centre of the tree and 
were not visible from the outside. In those days we had not 
commenced planting rubber, and coffee never having been very 
severely attacked on any other estates, not much attention was 
paid to the matter, when, however, our Para, Rembong and coco- 
nuts trees, in the “ Ulu ” and the coast districts alike, began to 
suffer from the ravages of these pests, every conceivable remedy 
was tried and persisted with. Roots were bared and kept open 
to the air, painted with tar, washed with Bordeaux mixture solu- 
tions of tuba root, vasamboo (sweet flag), jey’s disenfectant, etc., 
in the case of coconuts large quantities of salt were dug in close 
round the base of the tree, clumps of cuscus grass were planted 
close up against the stems of the rubber trees, and everything 
tried which seemed to offer the smallest chance of success. I have 
calculated that where effected trees could be treated every second 
or third day, the actual mortality was, with the assistance of these 
remedies, kept down to about 5 % to 6 % of the trees actually 
attacked, but the expense was of course very heavy, as the same 
tree had to be attended to times without number before the ter- 
mites moved on. Then came Mr. Bayley'S wonderful effort upon 
Lowlands where more damage was being done than on any Estate 
in Selangor; judging that a thorough digging all over would be of 
great benefit to his coffee and would at the same time, probably, 
