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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT MY- 

 COLOGIST, FEDERATED MALAY STATES, 

 FOR 1907. 



I assumed duties on the 4th April, but the mycological laboratory 

 was not ready for occupation until September, and microscopes, chemi- 

 cals and other laboratory apparatus ordered after my arrival were not 

 delivered until November, so that the year was almost at its end before 

 I was in a position to undertake definite scientific work. There was 

 other very necessary, if not strictly mycological, work to be done. 

 The large collection of books and pamphlets belonging to the Director 

 in the departmental library needed to be classified and indexed so as to 

 be easily available for reference by officers of the department and others. 

 The greater part of my time was devoted to this work, which is now 

 almost completed, but I also visited some twenty estates at the request 

 of managers who sought advice about diseased plants. 



Travelling occupied a good deal of time, but the information con- 

 veyed by letter is often meagre, and the specimens sent not complete 

 enough, so that a personal visit to the seat of the disease is necessary 

 and in the end more satisfactory. I have on occasions found the 

 existence of other diseases than that about which I had been originally 

 consulted. 



Field work has been helpful in other ways. A good deal of the 

 work in plant sanitation must consist in a study in the field of the 

 relation of the plant to its surroundings ; this is particularly true of 

 the Para plant, about the biology of which a good deal has yet to be 

 cleared up. Besides, I wished to acquire as quickly as possible a prac- 

 tical acquaintance with the methods of local agriculture. 



The greater number of letters received reported root disease, pro- 

 bably Fomes seinitostus Berk. It appears to travel from some of the 

 numerous old jungle stumps among the rubber trees to the healthy young 

 Para plant of from fifteen to thirty months old. Like most root diseas- 

 es it is insidious, and seldom noticed until the tree is almost dead ; 

 even when the leaves drop off from its effects the cause is often attrib- 

 uted to the tree "wintering." Cure is usually impracticable, but the 

 diseased trees can be isolated and the infection of neighbouring trees 

 prevented. The removal of the old jungle stumps is for various 

 reasons not practicable, but as long as they are left planters must be 

 prepared to see root disease cropping up. All old stumps ought to be 

 removed from nurseries at least. I have been able on different occa- 

 sions to follow fungal threads from an old stump in the nursery to 

 half-a-dozen or so of the young plants immediately round it. These, 

 if planted out, would not alone have succumbed themselves, but would 

 have formed centres of infection. 



A wound parasite has been giving trouble among one-year old 

 plants on several estates. It appears to gain entrance where the stem 

 has been stumped before transplanting from the nursery. It is found, 

 as a rule, on trees which have been planted as rather large stumps ; 

 in such cases the top was not taken off with a clean cut, but hacked 

 somewhat. The bark becomes black and dead and can be easily re- 

 moved, underneath it, on the wood, is a black damp mould. The fung- 



