GENERAL, DISTRIBUTION OF THE DISEASE. 



17 



Mr. F. A. Stockdale docs not appear to consider the disease serious: 



The few isolated cases in the Cedros district would indicate that this disease is not of 

 a very infectious character, but large numbers have been killed out in the Siparia 

 district, the spread being very rapid and apparently from the windward. I am 

 inclined to the view that this disease is similar to the destructive disease of cocoanuta 

 in Cuba.* 



There has been a good deal published on the coconut-palm dis- 

 ease of Trinidad, and while the early local investigators admitted tlie 

 presence of some bud-rot, they maintained that the worst of the injury 

 was due to other diseases. Tlie description and arguments of the 

 various writers appear so unsatisfactory that they will be discussed 

 more fully in a later paragraph. It is the belief of the writer from 



61'30' 



fir. 



10? 



Fig. 3.— Map of Trinidad. The location of coconut groves is shown by dots. The heavily shaded 



portions indicate diseased areas. 



personal examination in many places in the island that the bud-rot 

 is the principal disease in Trinidad, and that the others are of less 

 importance, or represent stages secondary to the bud-rot. 



British Guiana. — In British Guiana the groves at the mouths of the 

 Essequibo and Mahaicony Rivers are diseased (fig. 4). Hon. William 

 Russell examined the trees and reported, in correspondence to the Kew 

 Gardens in 1875, as follows: 



On dissecting the top of the tree, all the fruit germs were found quite rotten (putrid 

 fermentation), and gave a most offensive smell; and at the point where the last frond 

 or central spike divides from the lower fronds the state of putrefaction was fearful.* 



• Stockdale, F. A. Coconut Palm Disease (Society paper 247). Proceedings of the Agricultural Society 

 of Trinidad and Tobago, vol. 7, December, 1906, p. 45. 



' Anonymous. Bud- Rot Disease of Cocoanut Palm. West Indian Bulletin, vol. 6, 1905,pp. 307-321. 



6389°— Bui. 228—12 2 



