COOK—THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 289 
that we should not have had much more numerous and extended 
reports of it during the period of discovery. The lack of more 
adequate accounts does not appear so surprising if we consider that 
even at the present day the coconut is not an economic plant of the 
first rank in tropical America; that is, it is nowhere of such cardinal 
importance as in the tropical islands of the Pacific. 
Outside of a few districts where commercial plantations of coco- 
nuts have been established, the status of the coconut among the 
natives of tropical America remains to-day much the same as it 
appears to have been at the time of the discovery of America by 
Europeans. Coconut palms are found on all the coasts and prin- 
cipal islands, planted more or less abundantly as the inhabitants of 
the different regions happen to be more or less civilized, 
People too backward in civilization to have settled abodes do not 
undertake the cultivation of long-lived tree crops like the coconut. 
The more primitive tribes of Indians either have no agriculture at 
all, or a merely nomadic form of agriculture that utilizes only annual 
or quick-growing crops, which are planted every year in new clear- 
ings instead of upon the same stationary farm as in the temperate 
regions. A reason for this nomadic system of agriculture that gen- 
erally prevails in forested tropical regions of low elevation is found 
in the fact that it is much easier to clear a new tract of land every 
year by cutting and burning than to pull up the weeds that invade 
cleared land or to maintain the fertility of the soil under continued 
clearing and cropping. It is only when people have reached the 
next stage of agricultural development and maintain permanent 
clearings and gardens, as among the Polynesian and Malayan inhab- 
itants of the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans, that the coco- 
nut and other tree fruits become regular, staple products. Else- 
where, as among the tropical Indians of America and the natives of 
Africa, the coconut remains only secondary and exceptional, planted 
occasionally in the larger villages or towns that happen to be located 
near the coast, but nowhere attaining any serious or indispensable 
importance, 
At the present time the progress of the West Indian coconut 
industry, if not the actual existence of the palm in this region, appears 
to be threatened by a serious disease, which enters the terminal bud 
and kills the palm. Investigations of this disease indicate that it is 
due to a bacterial parasite, which appears to be spreading very 
rapidly.¢ 
@ Horne, W. T., La Enfermedad de los Cocoteros, Boletin Oficial de la Secretaria 
de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio, vol. 3, p. 1. (1907.) The Bud Rot and Some 
other Coconut Troubles in Cuba, Bull. 15, Estacion Central Agronomica de Cuba. 
(1908.) 
Johnston, J. R., The bud rot of the coconut palm, U. 8. Department of Agriculture, 
Bureau of Plant Industry, Circular 36. (1909.) 
