4 THE RICE WORM (tYLENCHUS ANGUSTUS) AND ITS CONTROL 



where the crop was so poor that it was not worth cutting and the cattle were 

 turned loose to graze it. The same officer reported total loss of the winter 

 rice crop in Raban village that year. In Begumganj thana of Noakhali 

 District the loss in 1910 was roughly estimated at 200,000 maunds (about 

 7,400 tons) of grain. In October, 1913, most of the cultivators in certain parts 

 of Feni were found cutting their winter rice for fodder, as they expected no 

 grain owing to a very severe outbreak of ufra. The average annual loss 

 in the village of Kapasia (north-east of Dacca District) for the four years 

 1911 — 14 was estimated by an officer of the Bengal Agricultural Department 

 to be Rs. 55,800, distributed over 1,600 acres of deep-water paddy, or an 

 average annual loss of nearly Rs. 35 per acre. In a limited number of villages 

 further south the same inquirer calculated the loss to exceed 1| lakhs of rupees 

 annually. In the Portuguese settlement at Nagori, east of the Madhupur 

 Jungle, the average for the four years endijig 1914 was said by a Revenue 

 officer to be over Rs. 20,000, distributed over 1,248 acres of cultivated land, 

 of which about two-thirds were annually attacked. This gives a loss of 

 Rs. 16 per acre of the cultivated land or Rs. 25 per acre of that annually 

 attacked. Examples could be multiplied, but enough have been given to 

 show that in certain parts of the infected area the disease has created an 

 economic problem of considerable magnitude since no other food crop can 

 be substituted for the rice now grown. But it is impossible to form any 

 reliable estimate of the total amount of damage caused in the whole tract. 



It is equally difficult to form an accurate estimate of the length of time the 

 disease has been known in various parts of the infected districts. Only in 

 Noakhali is there good evidence that it has existed for 20 to 30 years. As 

 the limits of extension are approached, it is quite clear that we are dealing 

 with a new and spreading disease. Many villages have been visited where 

 it has appeared within the last five years, and a few have only recognized it 

 during two or three years. The people between Feni and Comilla say it 

 reached them from the south-west, i.e., from the direction of Noakhali, and 

 on the whole it seems likely that it originated somewhere near the mouth of 

 the Meghna. Whether it reached India from some external source or began 

 by a previously harmless organism developing parasitic tendencies is an 

 interesting speculation. Very many of the so-called " new " diseases of plants 

 have been found subsequently to be endemic in the less explored parts of the 

 world. I have recently^ collected a number of such cases and brought forward 



^ Butler, E. J. " The dissemination of parasitic fungi and iateraational legislation." 

 Mem. Dept. of Agric in India, Bot. 8er., IX, No. 1, 1917. 



