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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1346 



2. All workers should be registered wlio are 

 able and willing to undertake tropical investi- 

 gations. Men occupying regular positions can 

 usually secure leave of absence to undertake 

 special investigations in their respective lines. 

 This register should include not only scientific 

 workers in the United States but those from 

 all parts of America and for that matter those 

 from any other part of the world who would 

 care to interest themselves in American 

 problems. 



3. Once such a list of available workers has 

 been secured then let it be widely known to the 

 difierent governments of the Pan-American 

 Union that the institution is in a position to 

 furnish the best attainable expert service, and 

 to supervise all such governmental scientific 

 projects as geological surveys, including spe- 

 cial studies of mineral resources; forestry 

 surveys, including suggestions for the utiliza- 

 tion of existing forest products and the re- 

 foresting of denuded areas ; physiographic sur- 

 veys; archeological studies; faunal or floral 

 studies; special industrial problems; or the 

 investigation of plant diseases, injurious in- 

 sects or other special agricultural problems. 



At the present time when really competent 

 investigators are hard to obtain, the tempo- 

 rary services of the highest class of experts, 

 vouched for and supervised by such an insti- 

 tution, should be very attractive to the gov- 

 ernments concerned. The exact form of agree- 

 ment with the institution and with individual 

 workers could be determined independently in 

 each case. The investigators might receive 

 temporary appointments as officials of the in- 

 terested governments and their reports be pub- 

 lished as official documents by such govern- 

 ments, or any other arrangement could be 

 made that would be mutually satisfactory. 



4. In like manner it should be made known 

 to the different industries dependent on trop- 



York in a search for the older sugar cane litera- 

 ture. The scanty representation of the literature 

 from South American scientific institutions and 

 experiment stations was quite surprising and there 

 seemed to be a lamentable lack of effort to keep 

 up with current publications from these sources. 



ical products that the resources and personnel 

 of the institution were at their service for the 

 study of any of their special problems. Many 

 of these industries now maintain their own 

 extensive research departments, but the abil- 

 ity to call in the highest possible class of 

 additional expert advisers would doubtless be 

 appreciated, especially in cases of unusual 

 emergency.'' 



1 As a case in point the United Fruit Co. has 

 for years been suffering heavy losses from the 

 ravages of the banana wilt disease on some of 

 their extensive Central American estates. 

 Their early attempts at hiring exjmrt advisers 

 proved unfortunate, no workable remedies 

 having been suggested by the pathologists em- 

 ployed. As a consequence banana planting 

 has been abandoned on large areas and expen- 

 sive railroad and other equipment is lying 

 idle. It seems to be a case that is not soluble 

 by ordinary pathological methods. If a council 

 of experts had been available bringing a 

 broader viewpoint to bear on the problem it is 

 likely that some practical solution could long 

 since have been arrived at with great financial 

 advantage to the company. Long range advice 

 without personal investigation is always risky, 

 but in this ease the most obvious method for 

 combating banana wilt would seem to be to 

 plant these lands in sugar cane for a term of 

 years. This crop is adapted to banana lands 

 and it would fully utilize the railroad and 

 other equipment. After the wilt fungus had 

 died out of the soil (requiring an unknown 

 nimiber of years) a portion or all of the lands 

 could be again planted to bananas, if that 

 seemed desirable while other lands less well 

 adapted to bananas could be planted to cane 

 to keep up a supply for the mills. 



5. Universities, museums and other insti- 

 tutions planning the sending of scientific ex- 

 peditions to the tropics should be invited to 

 cooperate with this institution in order to ob- 



2 Attention is called to the report on Sugar Cane 

 Mosaic or Yellow Stripe Disease recently pub- 

 lished in The Journal of the Department of Agri- 

 culture of Porto Eico, Vol. 3, No. 4, as an example 

 of the cooperative study of a serious tropical agri- 

 cultural problem. 



