224 



At the same time the mature Fiddler beetles do considerable 

 harm to the foliage of the trees which they happen to infest, and 

 the Paris Green remedy should always be used. 



Throughout the parish of St. Mary I saw nothing which can be 

 termed a disease of cocoa trees ; those which it was stated were 

 suffering from disease were growing under the same circumstances 

 as those which were said to have been attacked by Fiddler beetles, 

 viz., on the poorer parts of the land, ridges or places suffering from 

 bad drainage ; exposure to wind on poor soil is more than cocoa 

 trees can be expected to flourish under ; I saw many trees under 

 such conditions, the owners of which were fearing disease in con- 

 sequence of the thriftless look of the trees. 



I must say, I came away from St. Mary with a much highe^ 

 opinion of cocoa as a permanent crop than I went with to that 

 parish, after hearing the reports of the bad state of the trees from the 

 effects of the hurricane of 1 903, diseases, &c. It is little short of 

 wonderful to see the way in which some of the trees after being 

 badly battered in the hurricane have recovered their former vigour 

 and are bearing fine crops ; this of course has taken place only 

 on good land and where attention was promptly paid to the trees 

 and the land after the hurricane. 



Mr. Rudolf at Belleville and Messrs. Kerr & Co., of Llanrumney 

 showed me trees which it seems hard to believe were so battered 

 as recently as August, 1903 ; the only indication in some of the 

 fields of anything unusual having happened, consisted of a tree 

 here and there still being out of the perpendicular ; in cases where 

 trees were broken badly, gormandizers have sprung up and are 

 now bearing ; on the other hand I found fields which have had no 

 attention, still looking very bad ; this was notably the case at a 

 small settler's field at Islington (Mr. Livingston's). The drainage 

 had never been particularly good, and in consequence of the heavy 

 rains during the past two years it had steadily got worse ; here the 

 trees have not yet attempted to recover. 



Some of the planters in St. Mary are pruning too severely, 

 growing long weakly primary branches which bend down, leaving 

 the centre of the tree too open, which results in the crown of the 

 tree and the bark of the pruning branches getting sunburnt — I was 

 careful to point out the evil effects of this. I would suggest that 

 trees which are recovering slowly from the effects of the 

 hurricane should be left unpruned ; with the exception of the 

 removal of the gormandizers, too much repression of foliage must 

 not be practised till the trees have recovered their usual vigour ; 

 I would also suggest the removal of the pods if such trees attempt 

 to bear. Where they have recovered, and are strong and healthy, 

 they should be pruned in the usual way, and may be left to bear, 

 but the production of half a dozen pods on a weakly tree will 

 probably mean a loss of 1 3 months' growth and probably many 

 times 6 pods next year. 



