273 
Rorat GanpENs, Kew, to COLONIAL OFFICE. 
Str, Royal Gardens, Kew, November 13, 1890. 
I wave the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 
November 10, asking for information likely to aid the Government of 
“a in combating the banana disease, which is stated to exist in the 
olony. 
The Queensland disease has been investigated by Joseph Baneroft, 
M.D., an able scientific man residing in Brisbane. He kindly sent to 
Kew a copy of a lecture, published apparently in 1879, “On the Diseases 
ial Progress." 
attributes the disease to a nematoid worm, a minute parasite which 
attacks the roots. It is no doubt stated correctly to be allied to the 
well known paste eel, 4nguillala. It might be worth while for the 
. DF. h 
states that “ ploughing up and summer fallow ought to kill the parasite." 
Many plants, such as the carnation, suffer severely from a similar 
disease at Kew, and we find that no remedy is so efficacious as changing 
the ground from time to time. 
the issue of the same paper for December 14, 1889, Sir 
Ferdinand van Mueller, adopting the view that the disease is produc 
o 
cides, ploughing the land, leaving it fallow, and alternating some other 
crop. The ground should subsequently be replanted from an unaffected 
locality. This appears judicious advice, and I am not aware that 
with our present knowledge of the subject there is anything else to 
recommend. 
I am, &c. 
(Signed) W. T. TurskLToN DYER. 
John Bramston, Esq., C.B. 
CLXXXL—FIBRE PRODUCTIONS IN THE CAICOS, 
The Turks and Caicos Islands lie between 21? and 22? N. lat. and 
71° and 72° 37’ W. long. Their area ie 169 square miles. The most 
important island, Grand Turk, is 21 miles long and 2 miles broad. It 
contains 2,500 inhabitants, being half the total population, NET 
ese islands were originally settled from Bermuda in the 18th 
century, and formed at first a portion of that colony. In 1799 they 
were transferred, for purposes of government, to the colony of the 
Bahamas, to which group they geographically belong. In 1848 they 
