Remedies may be described as preventive and aggressive, and, by an
active campaign of precaution, many subsequent remedial applications
can be avoided.
Most of the beetles attacking the palm are known to select heaps of
decomposing rubbish and manure as their favorite (if not necessary)
breeding places, and it is obviously of importance to break up and
destroy such; nor can any better or more advantageous way of effecting
this be suggested than by promptly spreading and plowing under all such
accumulations as fast as they are made; or, if this be impracticable,
by forking or turning over or otherwise disturbing the heaps, until
convenient to dispose of them as first suggested.
A truly preventive and simple remedy, and one that I can commend as a
result of close observation, is the application of a handful or two
of sharp, coarse, clean sand in the axillæ of the young leaves. The
native practice is to mix this with ashes, salt, or tobacco dust;
but it is questionable if the efficacy of the remedy lies so much in
these additions as in the purely mechanical effect of the sand, the
constant attrition of which can not be other than highly objectionable
to the insect while burrowing.
Of offensive remedies, probing with a stout hooked wire is the only
form of warfare carried on in these Islands; but, as the channel of the
borer is sometimes tortuous and deep, this is not always effective. A
certain, simple, and easily applied remedy may be found in carbon
bisulphid. It could be applied in the holes (which invariably trend
downward) with a small metal syringe. The hole should be sealed
immediately with a pinch of stiff, moist clay.
It is likely that this remedy and probing with a wire are the only
successful ways of combatting the red beetle, whose grub strikes in
wherever it finds a soft spot; but, for these species which attack
the axils of the leaves, I have great faith in the efficacy of the
"sand cure," and no nut picker should go aloft unprovided with a small
bamboo tube of dry, sifted sand, to protect the bases of recently
expanded leaves.
In Selangor cocoanut trees now come under the government inspection,
and planters and owners, under penalties, are compelled to destroy
these pests. Mr. L. C. Brown, of Kuala Lampur, in that State,
who writes intelligently on this subject, [8] lays great stress on
the value of clean cultivation in subduing beetles, and repeats a
cultural axiom that never grows old and that will, consequently,
bear reiteration here--that it is rarely anything but the neglected
plantation that suffers, and that the maintenance at all times of a
healthy, vigorous growth is in itself almost a guaranty of immunity
from attacks of these pernicious insects.
While we, unfortunately, know that this is not in all cases an assured
protection against diseases or insect enemies, it certainly minimizes
the danger and, in itself, is a justification of the high-pressure
cultural treatment advocated throughout the preceding pages.