ARECA 



CATECHU 



Betel-nut 



Protection. 

 Sylhet. 



Bombay. 



White-ants. 

 A Borer. 



Bengal. 



Plague. 

 Indolence. 



Loss of Eevenue, 



Dead stumps. 



Destruction of 

 Tissue. 



Causes of Plague, 



Eemedy. 



THE BETEL-NUT PALM 



fruiting inflorescence, and for its growth it is necessary that moisture should 

 exist at that period. He accordingly recommends steps being taken to secure 

 a change in the period of harvest. The late crop of former years he regards as 

 having been beneficial, and may be obtained by departures in the method of 

 cultivation. So also improvements in the nature of the covers presently used 

 to protect the inflorescence, he views as very desirable. Covers that leak, he 

 adds, are likely to be more injurious than none at all. 



Speaking of the Sylhet disease, he says that the general symptoms are the 

 same as those in Mysore hole roga, namely, the dropping of the nuts before 

 maturity. Gradually the swollen green part below the leaves is seen to diminish 

 in size. Withering of the outer leaves then follows, and finally the whole head 

 dies and falls off. " The conditions resemble those which would be caused by 

 drought or some general disturbances and not by a local disease at the crown of 

 the palm. No trace of any parasitic fungus can be found in the earlier stages 

 at the top of the tree. The stem is generally healthy. Below ground, however, 

 matters are different. Here there is invariably a rot, either of the roo'ts or of the 

 below-ground part of the stem even in very early cases." Reasoning from 

 analogy with other root fungi, Butler recommends the surrounding of affected 

 portions by trenches. But to be effective, trenching must be undertaken as 

 soon as the first disease appears in the garden. The trench should be two feet 

 deep, about a foot broad, and drained so as to prevent water accumulating in 

 it. It should entirely surround and cut off the first affected palm or palms. 

 [Cf. Pests and Blights of the Tea Plant, 1903, 413.] 



Of Godavari, it has been said that white-ants often injure the palm materially 

 by eating the rootlets. Of Bombay, Mollison (I.e. 262) observes, "Betel-palms 

 are not much affected with disease. A borer does considerable damage. It 

 cuts a tunnel from the root upwards and in time reaches to the growing top. 

 The damage there done is so considerable that the top withers and when wind 

 blows breaks off and falls to the ground." 



The investigations conducted by me in the great betel-nut area of Bengal 

 left the impression on my mind that there was less to be surprised at in the 

 severity of the plague that devastates the plantations than in the infrequency 

 of its occurrence. It is next to impossible to imagine any industry existing at 

 all under the conditions of abject neglect that prevail in the Bengal betel-nut 

 districts. All that the owner of a plantation does is to lay the estate out on the 

 principle of the greatest number of trees on the least space, and at the lowest 

 labour and expense possible. He then builds his house, and he and his sons and 

 grandsons settle down to a life of family disputes that not infrequently lead to 

 lawlessness. He hires out his plantation to contractors who collect the fruits in 

 any way they think fit, the owner all the while sitting by in a state of complete 

 indifference and indolence. He neither drains, manures, nor cultivates his 

 plantation in any form worthy of the name but lives in opulence until plague 

 appears, when, if his property chances to be devastated, he gathers together 

 his movable goods and leaves the district in order to escape payment of the revenue 

 or rent during the twenty years of renovation that may have to be faced. 



After the most careful examination of numerous plantations (or rather 

 jungles) of betel-nut palms in Eastern Bengal I failed to find any serious insect 

 or fungal blight on the trees that were nevertheless seen to be dead and dying in 

 every direction. The crown of leaves withered and was blown off, leaving a 

 dead stump behind, until what was once a plantation looked like a harbour with 

 thousands of masts. The destruction was not confined to particular plantations 

 but had spread over the country like a great wave of infection in such a manner as 

 to justify the name of " Plague " that had been given to it. On microscopic 

 examination, the tissue of the dead and dying palms was found to be permeated 

 with an organic agent of destruction in which it might be said that the funda- 

 mental tissue had invaded and devoured the fibrovascular. The condition, in 

 other words, was very similar to that described under the name " Tyloses." As 

 seen in Europe on the vine, the cucumber and other plants, that constitutional 

 disease is believed to be induced when an undue amount of moisture is given to 

 the roots, while the leaves are at the same time exposed to an abnormally dry, 

 hot atmosphere or the reverse conditions. The cultivators in Bengal admit that 

 plague follows when the soil becomes abnormally dried up, through failure 

 of the customary showers in January, more especially if the hot months are 

 ushered in by a cyclone. The remedy lies in more generous spacing, when laying 

 out the plantation ; more careful cultivation, in which drainage, irrigation and 



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