9 



grown as a perennial throughout the Archipelago under the name 

 "patani." Our cultivated limas are in all respects as to quality and 

 productiveness very much superior to, and will, in time, I think, supersede 

 the "patani." 



Garden Pease. Outside reports have in general been even less satisfac- 

 tory than those made with beans, and our own trials, while satisfactory, 

 have been merely confirmatory of the hypothesis that their development 

 would only be good when planted during the coolest season of the year 

 (December to March) and irrigated. 



Exotic Cucurbitacece. Of these a great variety of squashes, vegetable 

 marrows, pumpkins, cucumbers, and musk and water melons have been 

 tried, and the long record of disaster is practically all confined to the 

 ravages of insects or fungus diseases. Our own plantings quickly suc- 

 cumbed to a blight that the early and frequent application of boulli borde- 

 laise was powerless to subdue, but we experienced no difficulty in hold- 

 ing insect foes in check by the application of conventional sprays. The 

 omnipresent Diabrotica appears in clouds, and without unremitting war- 

 fare the planter of exotic cucurbits engages in a hopeless undertaking. 



The blights appear to be the same as those that have at times devastated 

 the melon and cucumber fields of the middle western United States and 

 may in all likelihood be held in suspense by the application of timely 

 prophylactic sprayings. 



Still more valuable I esteem the information derived from many native 

 Filipino gardeners as to the influence that time of planting bears upon 

 the control of these diseases. 



The hypothesis, and a very plausible one, being that the spores of the 

 disease are inactive or dormant during the dry season, and consequently 

 plants reared at that time will escape all attacks. 



While it is imprudent to generalize from isolated cases, I will cite the 

 fact that I observed in Cavite Province, upon lands analogous to those of 

 our own station and located like the latter at sea level, both melons and 

 cucumbers of surpassing excellence grown from American seeds distrib- 

 uted by the Bureau but not planted until late into the dry season. These 

 had received irrigation but no treatment for disease of any kind, and 

 their general condition was such as to excite the admiration of the most 

 critical horticulturist. The native cucurbits, which contribute by far the 

 most important green element to the Filipino menage, are by no means 

 immune from this disease, and their almost universal practice of late or 

 middry-season planting furnishes an invaluable and probably unerring 

 guide to the successful cultivation of this class of plants at sea level. Our 

 own previous recommendations, based upon insufficient knowledge of local 

 conditions, advising planting of cucurbitacese toward the dose of the 

 rainy season, will be accordingly modified to meet the obvious benefits that 

 will probably follow the use of the Filipino method. 



All exotic cucurbits are extremely sensitive to decay of leaf, vine, and 



