mi. COLLTNGWOOD ON KFTMEG-CULTTTATTON IK SIKOAPOUE. 47 



dung. The result of this universal treatment was that the trees 

 for a time grew luxiuiantly, and yielded large returns. About 

 six hundred nuts, or 8 lbs. weight, were yielded by a good tree 

 during the year ; and as the crop was yielded all the year round, 

 independently of season, some plantations produced a pieul (133 

 lbs.) per diem on an average — the value of the piciil being 70 or 

 80 dollars— or from 25,000 to 30,000 dollars per annum. 



For upwards of twenty years the planting was carried on 

 vigorously. Plantations changed hands at very extravagant prices ; 

 and much money was made during that period. In the year 

 18G0, however, a sudden destruction cauie upon the trees, from 

 an unknown quarter. To the dismay of the planters, there 

 appeared among the trees (which up to that time had yielded 

 magnificently) a blight whose destructive effects could not be 

 arrested, while the source of it defied all inquiry. In the night 

 a tree woidd be attacked, and the morning light would show its 

 topmost branches withered; the leaves fell off*; the disease slowly 

 spread downwards, chiefly on one side of the tree ; and, in spite 

 of every attempt to check it (the lower portion often being for a 

 long time green and bushy), the tree became an unsightly mass 

 of bare and whitened twigs. Most trees were entirely stripped 

 in time, and became mere skeletons. Large outlay was expended 

 in the endeavours to arrest the destruction, but it was all thrown 

 away. No situation was exempt from its ravages ; hills and 

 valleys alike suflfered ; nor could any principle be traced in its 

 promiscuous attacks. Upon a close examination of diseased 

 parts, it is found that the formative layer inside the bark dries up 

 and turns black ; the leaves then wither and fall off; and soon the 

 bark is found to be full of small perforations; but no insect of 

 any kind has ever been discovered in connexion with the change, 

 nor has any fungus been charged with the destruction. Its 

 nature has been a mystery and a puzzle to the planters, who have, 

 for the most part in vain, sought for a cause, either near or remote, 

 and whose efforts to arrest it have proved entirely unavailing. 

 I have heard various suggestions offered, some of them of the 

 wildest character, to account for the disease. That which my 

 friend M. Jose d' Almeida proposes is by far the most reasonable, 

 and in fact commends itself to the judgment of the vegetable 

 physiologist. It is that the trees had long been unnaturally 

 forced, by digging trenches too closely around their spongiolcs, 

 and by too rich and long-continued manuring, by which heavy 

 crops, it is true, were for a time obtained, but which at last 



