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for pest control in the Straits Settlements in 1918 
when the Department took charge of agricultural 
work in that Colony. 
In the early days of the newly formed Division an 
epidemic of an exotic species of locust required 
prompt attention. The control measures instituted 
in this instance were so effective that the pest was 
exterminated. 
The control of the two coconut beetle pests pre- 
viously mentioned has received and is still receiving, 
systematic attention. Control of the various well- 
known rubber diseases is also a matter of routine. 
Pest control, in addition, includes the insistance 
upon a certain degree of estate sanitation in so far 
as the lack of such is likely to create favourable 
conditions for the entry and spread of disease. 
Estate sanitation consists mainly of the destruction 
by lire of dead rubber trees and the prevention of 
such bad and excessive tapping as will render the 
tapping surface liable to disease. Lalang, a coarse 
grass, which damages cultivated plants by weaken- 
ing and retarding their growth, is considered to 
come under the term “ pest ” and its eradication is 
insisted upon, so far as is practicable. Complete 
control of this noxious weed during the recent 
rubber slump period was, in many instances, not 
economically possible, but the stricter policy which 
was practised before the slump, is now again 
followed. 
Any new line of work, or the control of any new 
pest, requires much instructional work among 
small-holders before measures to enforce action can 
fairly be taken. Pamphlets and posters in Asiatic 
