Diseases 225 



species is responsible for the trouble. This is 

 confirmed by Johnston in his exhaustive study 

 of bud-rot, and supported by Busch, of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, who 

 studied the disease in Cuba as far back as 

 1901. He stated that it was probably clue 

 to the fungus Pestalozzia palmariim, and that 

 bacteria seemed to play some part in the soft- 

 rotting of the crown. 1 Earle, studying the 

 disease in Jamaica, also attributed it to bacteria, 

 as did Mr. Rorer himself, after accompanying 

 Dr. Erwin F. Smith, of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, to Cuba to investi- 

 gate the disease. Butler, of the Agricultural 

 Research Institute, Pusa, shows that the 

 Indian disease is caused by a fungus belonging 

 to the genus Pythium. 



Bud-rot, reported Copelancl 2 in 1908, is 

 very prevalent in Lazaan, Sungi, and Ylaya, 

 and has done much damage in its time in 



o 



certain centres in the . Philippines ; some 

 owners, on the other hand, are ignorant of 

 it, so evidently the damage, if severe, was 

 local, and due to dampness, as the palms at 

 the foot of Mount San Cristobal, which are 

 comparatively unreached by the wet ocean 

 winds, were (in 1908) free from bud-rot, whilst 

 Captain Grove reports that he heard years ago 



1 United States Department of Agriculture, Division 

 of Entomology, Bulletin No. 38, 1902. 



2 Edwin Bingham Copeland, in the Philippine Journal 

 of Science, May, 1908, p. 211. 



15 



