THE BUD-ROT OF PALMS IN INDIA. 277 



table, this is really due to a large number of villages having been 

 persuaded to adopt systematic cutting, and not to any failure of the 

 measures adopted to check the disease. The proof of this is to be 

 found in a consideration of the number of trees cut periodically in 

 the villages where cuttings have been more or less regular for a 

 considerable time. The writer has been unable to find any village 

 which does not show a fall in the number of trees cut periodically, 

 where figures are available from a fairly early period in the 

 campaign. 



The villages in the accompanying table illustrate this point. 

 They have been selected absolutely at random, being in fact most of 

 those for which cutting figures up to or later than April 1908 

 happened to be filed in the Mycological Laboratory, Pusa, with 

 one or two others for which figures were readily available. The 

 total number of palms growing in these villages is so large that the fall 

 in the numbers cut cannot be due to the cutting operations having 

 removed any appreciable proportion of the trees liable to infection. 



The above figures show a fall to little more than one-third in 

 the average number of trees cut monthly, the mean interval between 

 the middle of the two periods selected being about 18 months. The 

 fall in Peddapur and Rajahmundry Taluks along the Northern 

 limits of the infected area was more marked and led Mr. Green to 

 report in July 1909 that the disease was practically extirpated from 

 these Taluks. This was an over-sanguine view but still the nmnber 

 of new cases in these two Taluks is now small. Even allowing for 

 the fact that, as stated in the discussion of the figures given in the 

 table on page 274, the monthly figures do not always accurately 

 represent the actual new cases every month, the error applies equal- 

 ly to both periods, and there is no doubt that a marked fall has occur- 

 red in the intensity of the disease in the Godavari. 



The factor which has prolonged the operations and added enor- 

 mously to their difficulty is one which was not foreseen when they 

 were first started. This is the existence, which the writer now be- 

 lieves to be unquestionable, of latent infection. How long the para- 

 site may remain dormant within the bud is not known, but there is 



