456 



the fungus is established. We cannot stop this but we can 

 prevent the introduction of plants infected by a fungus which has 

 adapted itself so as to be parasitic on any plant we are cultivating, 

 and its being put in contact with other healthy plants of the same 

 kind, and this is or should be the object aimed at by all legislation 

 against the introduction of fungus pests. 



One of the difficulties in carrying out the disinfection laws of the 

 various countries seems to be due to the smallness or incompetence 

 of the staff. A case of plants sent from Singapore to an island where 

 the laws were stringent was entirely destroyed by the disinfecting 

 process, entailing a great loss on the importer. Another planter com- 

 plains that the delay in disinfecting and inspecting is so great that 

 the plants are half dead when they arrive at his estate. In some 

 countries formerly, at least, no plants of any kind were allowed to be 

 imported, preventing thereby any progress in agriculture at all. It 

 should not be difficult to prevent the importation of sick plants with- 

 out discouraging the importer of new strains or new species of useful 

 plants which may be of the greatest value in the future to his country. 

 At the same time, in the case of any disease of a cultivated plant 

 appearing it should be possible and compulsory for the planter to 

 report to a scientific staff who could take steps to prevent the disease 

 increasing or being spread by sending infected plants from one estate 

 to another. As so many of our plant diseases are of local origin I 

 hold this system to be actually of more importance than preventing 

 accidental introduction of the pest from outside, which is none the 

 less a point not to be lost sight of. — Ed. 



A NOTE ON SOME RECENT FUNGUS LITERATURE. 



Bulletin No. 65, Vol. IX, of the Department of Agriculture of 

 Trinidad contains, among other interesting articles, an admirable 

 account of some recent investigation on pod-rot, chupon-wilt and 

 canker of cacao by Mr. J, B. Rorer, the Mycologist to the Department. 



In the first part of the work the autho** deals with the history of 

 pod-rot and canker, mentioning Harrison's report (1895) on a disease 

 which occurred in Grenada, Surinam and British Guiana and which 

 was undoubtedly pod-rot, and describing Willis' and Green's report 

 (1897) on " canker " of cacao in Ceylon, thus showing that the first 

 accurate descriptions of pod-rot and canker came respectively from 

 the West and from the East. He next describes Carruthers' work in 

 Ceylon (1898) in which the pod disease was attributed to one of the 

 PeroHosporaceae and the canker to a species of Nectria which was 

 afterwards identified as N. ditissitna, Tul. ; he mentions Howard's 

 work in Grenada (1901) o na pad disease of cacao caused by Diplodia 

 cacaoicola, P. Henn., and on a canker disease of the stem which was 

 attributed to two fungi named by Massee Nectria Theohromae and 

 Calonectria JIavida ; he points out that Hart was the first to make 



