20 



REPORT OF AN INVESTIGATION OF DISEASED COCOANUT PALMS 



IN CUBA. 



By AvGisT BfSfK. 



In August, 1901, I was instructed to proceed to Habana, Cuba, and 

 report to the military governor there in order to investigate a disease 

 whicli threatened the cocoanut industry in the province of Santiago. 



In accordance with instructions, I left Washington August 7 and, 

 arriving in Havana on the 10th, reported in the palado to the adjutant- 

 general. Col. J. H. Scott. The same day I sailed with his instruc- 

 tions for Baracoa, on the northeast corner of the island, arriving there 

 August 14. The country _around Baracoa is the only remaining cocoa- 

 nut region of importance in Cuba, and the industry is the main sup- 

 port of that part of the island, from which large shipments of great 

 value are annuall}^ exported to the United States. 



The countr}' of that region is mountainous, rough, very fertile, and 

 picturesque with palm-covered mountain sides, deep valleys, and large 

 rivers. There are no wagon roads, and travel is on horseback along 

 narrow and often difficult trails. 



There were no diseased palms in the immediate neighborhood of 

 Baracoa, but going out some 10 miles east along the coast, yellow, 

 drooping tops and naked trunks began to appear, and still farther out 

 around Mata and neighboring towns the disease reached its highest 

 development. Here large areas were attacked, and already from 10 to 

 nearly 100 per cent of the trees were lost. Serious damage was quite 

 evident, and the lamentations of the natives and their anxious Inquiries 

 as to how to save their sole property were most natural. 



The first outward indication that a palm is attacked is the falling of 

 the young fruit; shortly afterwards the larger nuts drop and the leaves 

 assume a pale yellowish color. 



Within a month all the large lower leaves droop and fall, leaving 

 the pale, sickh' tops, which at the first heavy wind blow over and then 

 only the naked trunks stand as ghastly tombstones where a few months 

 before stood graceful valuable palms. Palms of all ages are sul)ject 

 to this disease, though it seems more prevalent among the older plants. 



On felling a palm and examining it, it is apparent that the troul)le 

 is not found in the root or main part of the small trunk. From the 

 root upward to within a few inches from the top, the trunk may be 

 fresh and sound with practicall}^ no insect of an}^ kind and with no 

 fungus mycelium. Just below the top and in between the bases of the 

 leaves were found, in nearly all of the three hundred odd palms in 

 ditl'erent stages of disease which were cut down during my investiga- 

 tion, the galleries of Scolj^tids or ambrosia beetles {Xylehorus spp.), 

 rareh^ however, in such numbers as to arouse suspicion of the beetles 

 being the cause of the death of the palms. 



