227 



NOTE BY DR. COUSINS. 

 Re Cocoa Trees dying. 



There is no doubt whatever that " Fiddler" larvae can and do 

 attack the roots of healthy orange and cocoa trees. 



I consider that in view of the recorded fact that the original 

 cocoa cultivation in Jamaica was destroyed by a similar, if not 

 identical pest, mentioned by Dalby Thomas * in extract below, 

 that Mr. Cradwick fails to appreciate the serious nature of this 

 pest. 



The reason why trees growing on thin and denuded soil are 

 specially attacked is not, as Mr. Cradwick concludes, that weak 

 trees are specially liable to attack but because the roots are ac- 

 cessible to the larval attack under such conditions. The wholesale 

 death of budded oranges in the Manchester orchards had been at- 

 tributed to defective drainage, deep planting, poverty of soil, etc., 

 until I went there and had a number of trees dug up when the 

 cause was found to be solely the girdling of the roots by Prepodes 

 larvae. Cultivated soils encourage the attack of these pests be- 

 cause of their friability. This is why wild oranges in the pastures 

 in Manchester are free from damage while budded fruit, if neg- 

 lected, rapidly succumb to this pest. I think it is desirable to 

 warn planters of the serious possibilities of Prepodes if neglected 

 and that a regular crusade of hand-picking of adults and spray- 

 ing with Paris Green and treatment of infested trees with Carbon 

 Bisulphide to destroy larvae in the soil are desirable. 



EXTRACT FROM "AN ACCOUNT OF THE RISE AND GROWTH OF 

 THE WEST INDIA COLONIES," BY DALBY THOMAS, LONDON, 

 1690. 



"Cocoa is now no longer a commodity to be regarded in our 

 colonies, though at first it was the principal invitation to the peo- 

 pling Jamaica ; for those walks the Spaniards left behind them 

 there, when we conquered it, produced such prodigious profit, with 

 little trouble that Sir Thomas Moddiford and several others set 

 up their rests to grow wealthy therein, and fell to planting much 

 of it, which the Spanish slaves who remained in the island always 

 foretold would never t'hrive, and so it happened ; for though it 

 promised fair and throve finely for five or six years, yet still at 

 that age, when so long hopes and care had been wasted about it, 

 withered and died away, by some unaccountable cause, though 

 they impute it to a black worm or grub which they find clinging 

 to its roots — the manner of planting it is in order like our cherry 

 gardens, which tree, when grown up it much resembles. It de- 

 lights in shade, so that by every tree they plant one of plantain, 

 which produces a fruit nourishing and wholesome for the negroes. 

 They by hoeing and weeding keep their cocoa walks free from 

 grass continually, and it begins to bear, at three, four or five years 



* See extract, for which I am indebted to C. E. DeMercado, Esq. 



