352 TlMEHRI. 
this colony for the successful growth of cocoa — an opinion 
fully borne out by the quality of that which has been 
already produced and reported upon — and the special 
suitability of the industry for agriculturists of limited 
means ; and it is to be hoped that the industry which has 
received such an impetus at its start will attract the 
attention which it deserves in the colony. That the 
cocoa plants are preyed upon by certain pests, is doubtless 
already well-known. Mr. JENMAN, in the report referred 
to above, mentions a fungous disease, as occurring on 
plants from the Demerara river, though he was inclined 
to believe that the fungous growth was the result rather 
than the cause of the unhealthy condition of the trees. Some 
time ago Mr. R. J Kelly shewed me a pod which had been 
eaten through on one side, and was infested within with 
flies, producing quite an unpleasant odour ; but from the 
nature of the opening it seemed that some other being 
had eaten away a portion of the pod, and that the flies 
had but taken advantage of the opening to make them- 
selves at home. A really serious pest to the cocoa 
plants, however, exists in certain forms of beetles, the 
young grubs or " worms" of which bite into the young 
shoots and bore along the pithy centre of the plants, 
gradually causing them to wither away until the tree is 
killed. This " disease" is, I have heard, extremely 
prevalent in the cocoa plantations in Surinam, and 
during this last year has been found, though not to any 
serious extent, in the Essequebo cocoa plantation be- 
longing to Mr. William Smith. Through the kindness 
of Mr. BOSCH-REITZ, through whom the matter was 
first brought under my notice, I have been supplied with 
the three stages of the insetts which thus attack these 
