94 



CONCLFSION. 



It will be seen that the activities of the inspecting staff are 

 fairly numerous and show every prospect of increasing largely in the 

 future. Nearly all the lines of work are of considerable importance, 

 as I think will be readily admitted, and new methods of dealing 

 with new diseases may become necessary as time passes and local 

 fungi become more and more adapted to rubber as a host plant. If 

 all these known and possible future diseases are to be kept well under 

 control, the inspecting officers will be kept busy, and in fact the 

 work that is even now necessary bids fair to grow beyond the 

 capacities of the present subordinate staff, so that a scheme for 

 increasing it in the near future is being drawn up in order to keep 

 pace with the needs of small and large planters. 



Even the short experience so far available seems to indicate the 

 real value of inspection work for disease control, though the full 

 results obtainable can only be arrived at slowly after many years of 

 careful and patient educative work. 



Discussion. 

 Mr. Coombs asked Mr. R. M. Richards whether he had in his 

 experience met actual cases of death of coconut palms which could be 

 assigned to Pestalozzia and whether under conditions obtaining on the 

 best estates here it was not advisable to leave the palms to recover 

 from the disease themselves. Also if from the point of view of 

 general sanitation it would be advisable to remove the tree creeper 

 so common in old palms. 



Mr. R. M. Richards replied that he had seen rare instances of 

 gi'own palms which had succumbed to Pestalozzia attacks. In cases 

 of attacks of this disease in nurseries it was not advisable to leave 

 matters to chance. In reply to the second question he did not 

 consider it necessary to clean up the creeper (a fern) from palms as 

 he had never found the creeper causing injury. 



Mr. P. B. Richards asked Mr. R. M. Richards whether he had 

 tried spraying with contact poisons applied with a poAver sprayer, 

 for the destruction of Brachartona. 



Mr. R. M. Richards said that he tried all forms of sprayers, 

 except a power sprayer, and found that spraying was inefficient. He 

 stated that singeing and hand collecting was, in his opinion, the only 

 way of dealing with the pest. 



Mr. Vaughan Smith asked Mr. South what steps had been taken 

 to control coconut beetles in the kampongs in the Bagan Datoh 

 district. 



Mr. South replied that the usual I'outine inspection had been 

 carried out throughout last year and a few cases had been taken 

 in court in most months of the year, but the results were not very 

 satisfactory and the Assistant Agricultural Inspector was intending 

 to give the matter his personal attention this year. 



