Dec. 1906.] 



491 



Plant Sanitation. 



manure heaps, rubbish, rotting or fallen trees should be removed and destroyed 

 at once. Rubbish heaps and decayed trunks if fallen should be burned." Now 

 that America has taken a hand in tropical agriculture, we may confidently 

 expect that coconut diseases will receive full attention ; they have been the 

 first to recognise that such work in the Tropics requires an equipment, if 

 possible, better than they have in America. 



In the article on Coconuts in Watt's Dictionary of the Economic Products 

 of India there is a reference to a stem disease which may be the same as the 

 one we are at present concerned with ; the information, however, is not 

 very definite, and the suggested remedy does not invite recommendation, 

 " Palms suffer from the attacks of an insect named bJionga, which gnaws the roots 

 of the tree. When a palm is suffering from the attacks of bhonga, a dark red juice 

 oozes from the trunk. When this is noticed, a hole three inches square is cut in 

 the trunk from four to six feet above where the juice is coming out, and is 

 filled with salt, which kills or drives away the insect," The recorder does not 

 suggest how the salt reaches the supposed insect ! The Sinhalese say that the 

 disease is the work of "Taldiya," but what " Taldiya" is they cannot tell. 



The other diseases of the coconut palm, in Ceylon do not call for much 

 attention. The "Bud Rot" described in Circular 15 has not been recorded from 

 any other locality. A leaf fungus, Pestalozzia palmarum, is extremely common 

 in the low country, but as it never kills a tree it is disregarded. Up country it 

 seems to be much less common. As its name indicates, it is a relation of the "Gray 

 Blight " of tea ; indeed, if the labels Avere removed from mounted spores of 

 the two species (and there is practically nothing but spores to lay hold of in a 

 Pestalozzia), no oue will be able to relabel them with any degree of certainty. Most 

 coconut diseases have been attributed to the effect of Pestalozzia palmarum, 

 probably because all palm fronds bear that fungus, and it therefore occurred 

 on the supposed spacimens of any disease which have been sent to Europe. 

 In Ceylon, it is confined to small spots on the leaves, and though it must to 

 some extent retard the growth of the tree, it does not cause diseases of the bud 

 or stem. The West Indian Bud Rot is still stated by some to be caused by it. 



A recent report from Java by Dr. Charles Bernard states that serious 

 damage has been wrought by Pestalozzia in the case of young trees. In a plantation 

 containing 5,000 plants, a year old, every tree was affected, more than half were so 

 badly affected that there was no hope of saving them, and about 1,000 had died. 

 Spraying with Bordeaux mixture is recommended, and is practicable in the 

 case of young palms. Assuming that the cause of the disease is correctly deter- 

 mined, this offers a striking illustration of the possible differences in the effects of 

 the same fungus on the same host in different countries. 



Uprooting Jungle Stumps. 



By T. Petch. 

 A correspondent writes from South India :— 



" May I bring to your notice a plan carried out by a neighbour of mine, 

 which is most successful. He first cuts down all the small trees; the large ones 

 are then tackled. The roots round the tree are cut through, and the weight 

 of the top boughs brings the tree down with a crash completely uprooting the 

 stump, In the case of large round-topped trees, the branches on one side can be 

 lopped, and the tree thus made to fall in any direction. This is in my opinion a 

 much cheaper and more satisfactory method than first felling the tree and then 

 digging up the stump, On the Nilgiris most of the forest trees are surface rooters, 

 and I expect it is the same with you ; this makes the plan I mention most efficient.' 



The method is, of course, not put forward as a new one, bat it is one which, 

 might be adopted with advantage in future clearings, 



