1* 



The following free grants have been made ; — 



Durban Home, plants ... £1 1 



- 2 17 6 



Convalescent Home, plants ... 3 12 6 



Government Asylum ... ... 3 15 



Durban Corporation ... ... 5 



17 



1 10 



Coffee and the Hemileia. 



As it frequently comes to my notice that in spite of what 

 has already occurred in Natal and other places, by the almost 

 complete ruin of coffee plantations by the destructive fungus 

 Hemileia vastatrix, some persons still clin^ to the idea that 

 coffee may still be successfully grown in the Colony and in the 

 Transvaal also, I think that it will not be out of place to give 

 some information as to what occurred here before the introduc- 

 tion of this pest into the Colony, and to state the conclusions at 

 which scientific men have come in the matter. In the year 1880 

 the Hemileia was not known in Natal, or at any rate it had not 

 been observed by planters or others, but in consequence of other 

 diseases or attacks of insects a Commission was appointed by 

 Government to look into the matter, and the correspondence in 

 connection with this Commission is in my charge here, but I 

 did not receive it until some years afterwards. In all the 

 correspondence no hint is given by any of the writers as to the 

 presence of Hemileia in the Colony except in one case. The 

 members of the Commission were C. Manning, Esq , J. P., D. 

 Brown, Esq , G. L. Smith, Esq., Sir J. L. Hulett, S. Crowder, 

 Esq., Chairman. A printed paper containing 24 questions was 

 forwarded to planters, and though the borer and bark diseases 

 are alluded to, the Hemileia is only mentioned by one person, 

 whose name I am not able to decipher with certainty, but it 

 appears to be H. F. Portel, and the letter is numbered (I think 

 wrongly) 94. He says " Leaf disease most virulent, cause and 

 origin unknown, appeared in Ceylon in 1871 or 1872." It is 

 somewhat strange that in all the correspondence this is the 

 only case in which the Hemileia is reported to exist in the 

 Colony, and so far as known to me, this letter received no 

 attention and is not even alluded to in the report of the Com- 

 mittee, which I have lately received from Government in com- 

 pliance with my request. 



During the time that the Commission was sitting, and at 

 a meeting of the '" Natal Microscopical Society " held in 1887 I 

 read a paper entitled " Notes on some Parasitical Fungi," and 

 to this meeting the members of the coffee Commission were 

 jiivited, but as they all with one exception lived out of Durban, 



