32 HISTORY AND CAUSE OF THE COCONUT BUD-BOT. 



destroyed. On a largo part of the plantation the disease had reduced 

 the trees to short stumps; on other parts to tall trunks with no 

 tops, or with tops brown and hanging down, or consisting of two or 

 three or half a dozen leaves. Healthy green trees were few in number. 

 A public road separates this estate from one to the north on which 

 there were many coconut trees, scarcely any of which were affected. 

 The diseased area is a very low, swampy, and poorly drained place 

 which was overgrown with underbrush and had been entirely left to 

 itself as to the spread of the disease and general cultivation. Water 

 is reached at a depth of 45 centimeters and often less in the wet 

 season. The soil under the surface is a heavy, sticky clay. The 

 diseased trees had all the appearance of bud-rot, the lower leaves 

 having turned brown and for the most part fallen off, only a few 

 leaves remaining more or less upright. Some trees were cut down and 

 examined as to the exact nature of the affected parts of the cro\vn. 

 The rot in the tissues was found to correspond exactly to that present 

 in diseased trees in Cuba and in Jamaica. All of the unliealthy trees 

 of this estate, with the exception of one or two in which very clearly 

 the cause was insects and in which the soft rot was absent, presented 

 the typical appearance of the trees infected with bud-rot. The un- 

 favorable conditions under which these palms were grown, i. e., in 

 wet, cla3^ey soil, together with the fact that the estate had been en- 

 tirely neglected for many years, undoubtedly had some influence on 

 the spread of the disease. ^Ir. Stockdale, in his report, considered 

 the majority of the trees of this estate to be affected primarily with 

 what he calls the root disease, and Mr. O. W. Barrett, in his in- 

 vestigations in 1907, confirmed Mr. Stockdale's opinion, but this is 

 contrary to the observations of the writer. It is sufficient to say 

 here that the disease called the "root disease" is very little under- 

 stood and has no proved cause. According to Mr. Stockdale, who 

 describes it, very frequently the crown of such a diseased tree becomes 

 later involved in a soft rot, leading one to think, in many cases at 

 least, that the root trouble is secondary and that the bud-rot or 

 crown disease is the primary one. Careful observations leave no 

 doubt that practically all of the diseased trees in this district are 

 affected in their crown with a soft rot, the symptoms of which 

 are typical of the well-known bud-rot. This statement does not at 

 all oppose the idea that the trunks or roots of some of the trees so 

 diseased may contain some fungus, or other organism quite dif- 

 ferent from that which occurs in the crown, but not the cause of the 

 bud-rot. 



iVnother district similar to LaventUle is at Point d'Or, near La 

 Brea and the Pitch Lake. This estate had not been in cultivation 

 for a number of years. Consequently it was heavily overgrown and 



228 



