CULTIVATIOIT IN CEYLON. 95 



more favorable to the germination and development of the fun- 

 gus, while this same condition of the sap in another tree is almost 

 or entirely absent. Neither chemical nor microscopical analysis 

 of the sap of the coffee-tree can, I am of opinion, reveal this dif- 

 ference of condition, no more than a chemical or microscopical 

 analysis could find any difference between the blood of a healthy 

 man and of one who suffers from malarious fever, due also, as you 

 will remember, to the action of a minute fungus, according to 

 recent discoveries. But I hold that differences of condition of the 

 -sap could be artificially created by the diffusion through the sys- 

 tem of the trees of different chemicals suited for the purpose. 

 Repeated trials had conclusively proved that this could .not be 

 done through the medium of the rootlets, the peculiar food-selec- 

 tive properties of which completely defeated the attempt to physic 

 the trees through the soil, and I adopted, therefore, a novel plan 

 of inducing absorption of different substances into the sap of the 

 plant through the cambium of the stem, and, being satisfied that 

 a certain absorption did take place in all but very thickly barked 

 trees, I have adopted this method in my experiments on coffee- 

 trees." 



Mr. Schrotty's investigations did not result in finding a rem- 

 edy, but it was found that some of the materials injected by him 

 into the plant checked the progi*ess of the fungus, and thus en- 

 couraged further experiments. Opinions vary, as evidenced by 

 the following extract from a letter which appeared in the Ceylon 

 Observer, of December 15, 1880 : 



" Depend upon it the leaf disease is not the ' disease,' but an 

 effect arising upon and from a diseased condition already con- 

 tracted by the coffee trees. Fungus, blight, mouldiness, appear 

 only upon already diseased subjects ! Wherefore surely we are 

 less concerned as to inquiring into how the evil operates in its 

 development, propagation, and continuity, than in ascertaining the 

 cause of it. There exists a cause, producing an enfeebled constitu- 

 tion of the coffee tree, upon which the Hermleia fixes with avidity. 

 See how invigorating manures and treatment sets up the tree, and 

 enables it to cast off the disease (as we say, but not ' the disease ' 

 — that we have not yet discovered — but cast off the attack) and 

 hold on the better under it." 



