GENERAT. DTSTRTBUTTON OF THE DISEASE. H 



leaving only the fibers which are too hard to be disintegrated. This 

 rot has been found, exceptionally, as far as 1.5 meters under the heart 

 of the bud, a hard outer shell being left around the central rotted 

 portion. Usually the decay extends in the trunk under the bud 

 for a distance of only 0.2 to 0.5 meter and never throughout its 

 length. 



Spots which are merely fungous infections often occur on the middle 

 leaves (PI. V, figs, 1, 2, and 3). These spots spread and coalesce, 

 leaving blackened, wet, and later, dry and dead tissues. Insects and 

 small animals are often found in tho decaying tissues, but the advanc- 

 ing margin of the soft rot appears to be occupied exclusively by 

 bacteria. 



Spread and loss. — The spread of this disease may be very rapid. 

 It may occur year after year as only scattered cases in a grove, but 

 frequently whole plantations may be affected in a short time. In 

 such groves scores and scores of bare trunks may be seen (PI. YI, fig, 

 1), the crowns of which have rotted and blown off. There may be 

 trees with the whole crown bent over and hanging downward (PI. VI, 

 fig. 2), and others with three or four ragged leaves waving upright in 

 the air and all the rest brown, broken, hanging down, and dead (PL 

 VII). In the midst of this desolation there are often some green- 

 crowned trees retaining a few nuts, or still in good bearing. From 

 two months to more than a year may elapse from the time of the 

 infection of a tree to its destruction. In Cuba a certain grove of 450 

 trees was totally destroyed in two years. Another grove was reduced 

 from 1,200 to 300 bearing trees in the same time. A planter in 

 Jamaica who formerly obtained a revenue of £5,000 per year from his 

 coconuts now gets barely £500. Of an estate in Trinidad comprising 

 some 5,000 trees only 15 per cent are standing at present (1907). 

 Formerly many coconuts were grown on the Grand Cayman Island, 

 but the industry has now been wiped out. In fact nearly every 

 coconut-growing region of importance in the West Indies has been 

 invaded by this menace to the industry. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE DISEASE. 



The coconut bud-rot has been studied most carefully in the West 

 Indies. It has been reported from various parts of the Eastern 

 Hemisphere and probably occurs in all tropical lands. 



TROPICAL AMERICA. 



Cuha. — While coconuts are grown in suitable places all over Cuba, 

 coconut gro^ving on a commercial scale is now mostly confined to a 

 narrow strip of land on the north shore at the extreme eastern end 



228 



