An experiment is described by which an attempt was made to determine the effect of manurial treatments on the damage caused by the shot‐hole borer of tea. Increases in yields of the plots were accompanied by increases in the damage caused by the beetles as measured by the number of broken branches‐an unusual correlation between pest damage and harvest (r=+0.9267). The experiment failed to indicate clearly the cause of increased damage following manuring, but possibly it results from an increase in the number of galleries formed (r=+0.65