24 



THE CUBA REVIEW. 



(Reproduced by permission of the 

 Two cocoanut trees which have died from 

 leaves are beginning to turn yellow. 



tree affected with budrot. Various writ- 

 ers strongly _ recommended flaming the 

 trees, but with their recommendations 

 give so little explanation of the expect- 

 ed effect of the treatment, that unless 

 used by an expert, it is worse than 

 none. Some planters, curiously enough, 

 flame the base of the tree instead of 

 the crown, as is customary, and, I must 

 say, with almost as much reason. Still 

 another recommendation is to dig a 

 trench about two feet deep around the 

 trees, presumably to better the drain- 

 age. There is no doubt that this, in 

 some coconut groves, would better con- 

 ditions, but the absurdity of it as a 

 treatment for budrot is evident when 

 so many cases of the disease are found 

 on hillsides and hilltops, with perfect 

 drainage. 



It is far from my wish to discourage 

 workers on the disease from an attempt 

 to discover a remedy. It is very pos- 

 sible that in the course of time by 

 happy chance some worker will hit upon 

 a method that will cure a diseased tree 

 ^vith little expense or. trouble. I have 

 high hopes of accomplishing that my- 

 self. My success or failure will be 

 known later. For the present I wish 



Estacion Central Agronomica de Cuba.) 

 the budrot. On the affected tree on the left the 



to point out certain facts, a knowledge 

 of which I deem essential to success in 

 this direction, but which appear to be 

 either little known or completely ig- 

 nored. 



The so-called budrot disease is one 

 that culminates in the rot of the center 

 of the crown or cabbage. The central 

 leaves may be the first ones affected, and 

 if so, the death of the tree is likely to 

 occur within a few weeks, or at most a 

 few months. But, as a matter of fact, 

 the majority of cases of budrot begin 

 at the base of the leaves, either on the 

 outside or inside, and may be present 

 many months before attacking the cen- 

 tral leaves. I have personally ob- 

 served the disease to be present in this 

 form for a period of seven months and 

 know that the disease was there when 

 I began my observations, and that it 

 was there when I closed my observations 

 after the seven months' period, and that the 

 middle leaves, the heart of the tree, were in 

 no way affected. New and healthy flower 

 spikes opened and set -a good quantity of 

 nuts. In a certain grove, of which I have 

 complete notes, at my last observations, 

 August 5 and 6 of this year, there were 

 altogether 125 trees, of which 40 were per- 



