These vermin are more easily guarded against than the insect tribe, and should be destroyed by poison.

Hog's lard, ground cocoa-nut and phosphorus form the most certain bait and poison combined.
These are some of the drawbacks to coffee-planting, to say nothing of bad seasons and fluctuating prices, which, if properly calculated, considerably lessen the average profits of an estate, as it must be remembered that while a crop is reduced in quantity, the expenses continue at the usual rate, and are severely felt when consecutive years bring no produce to meet them.
Were it not for the poverty of the soil, the stock of cattle required on a coffee estate for the purpose of manure might be made extremely profitable, and the gain upon fatted stock would pay for the expense of manuring the estate.

This would be the first and most reasonable idea to occur to an agriculturist--"buy poor cattle at a low price, fatten them for the butcher, and they give both profit and manure." Unfortunately, the natural pasturage is not sufficiently good to fatten beasts indiscriminately.

There are some few out of a herd of a hundred who will grow fat upon anything, but the generality will not improve to any great degree.

This accounts for the scarcity of fine meat throughout Ceylon.