COOK THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 289 



that we should not have had much more numerous and extended 

 reports of it during the period of discovery. The lack of more 

 adequate accounts does not appear so surprising if we consider that 

 even at the present day the coconut is not an economic plant of the 

 first rank in tropical America; that is, it is nowhere of such cardinal 

 importance as in the tropical islands of the Pacific. 



Outside of a few districts where commercial plantations of coco- 

 nuts have been established, the status of the coconut among the 

 natives of tropical America remains to-day much the same as it 

 appears to have been at the time of the discovery of America by 

 Europeans. Coconut palms are found on all the coasts and prin- 

 cipal islands, planted more or less abundantly as the inhabitants of 

 the different regions happen to be more or less civilized. 



People too backward in civilization to have settled abodes do not 

 undertake the cultivation of long-lived tree crops like the coconut. 

 The more primitive tribes of Indians either have no agriculture at 

 all, or a merely nomadic form of agriculture that utilizes only annual 

 or quick-growing crops, which are planted every year in new clear- 

 ings instead of upon the same stationary farm as in the temperate 

 regions. A reason for this nomadic system of agriculture that gen- 

 erally prevails in forested tropical regions of low elevation is found 

 in the fact that it is much easier to clear a new tract of land every 

 year by cutting and burning than to pull up the weeds that invade 

 cleared land or to maintain the fertility of the soil under continued 

 clearing and cropping. It is only when people have reached the 

 next stage of agricultural development and maintain permanent 

 clearings and gardens, as among the Polynesian and Malayan inhab- 

 itants of the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans, that the coco- 

 nut and other tree fruits become regular, staple products. Else- 

 where, as among the tropical Indians of America and the natives of 

 Africa, the coconut remains only secondary and exceptional, planted 

 occasionally in the larger villages or towns that happen to be located 

 near the coast, but nowhere attaining any serious or indispensable 

 importance. 



At the present time the progress of the West Indian coconut 

 industry, if not the actual existence of the palm in this region, appears 

 to be threatened by a serious disease, which enters the terminal bud 

 and kills the palm. Investigations of this disease indicate that it is 

 due to a bacterial parasite, which appears to be spreading very 

 rapidly/ 1 



«Horne, W. T., La Enfermedad de los Cocoteros, Boletin Oficial de la Secretaria 

 de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio, vol. 3, p. 1. (1907.) The Bud Rot and Some 

 other Coconut Troubles in Cuba, Bull. 15, Estacion Central Agronomica de Cuba. 

 (1908.) 



Johnston, J. R., The bud rot of the coconut palm, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, Circular 36. (1909.) 



