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penetrate the hard skin of the seed, they can easily push their way 

 into the soft body of the seedling, making their way through the 

 tissues and coming to maturity in the flower as soon as it appears. It is 

 only at this particular time in the life of the corn-plant that smut can 

 successfully attack it. 



Ergot is a disease of grasses which is different from smut. It 

 attacks the flower, and assumes the form of large grains, which are 

 in this case also the resting stage of the disease, remaining quiescent 

 through the winter months until the grasses, corn, etc., are flowering 

 when spores are formed in the ergot to be carried by the wind to attack 

 the flowers. It is a disease which is also quite different in its life- 

 history from that of Hemileia. 



Smut or ergot in corn and Hemileia in coffee cannot be considered 

 analagous ; and because smut may attack the seed corn when germi- 

 nating, and yet be not noticeable until the plant flowers, it is not pos- 

 sible to argue that a similar process may take place with the Hemi- 

 leia in Coffee. Infection has been tried in every way with the Hemi- 

 leia spores, and the only possible mode of infection is through the 

 breathing-pores of the leaf. The disease runs its course within certain 

 definite limits of time, and the journey from England to Jamaica is 

 practically equal to a period of quarantine. To prohibit the landing 

 of a coffee plant which is healthy on arrival from England, would be 

 equivalent to perpetual banishment from Jamaica of anyone who had 

 once been in a place or ship infected with small-pox. 



There is infinitely more danger in admitting into the Island letters 

 and travellers from Ceylon than Coffee-plants from Kew, and if the 

 latter be considered a source of infection, it is about time to proclaim 

 permanent quarantine against the whole world. 



I have, etc. 



W. Fawcett, 



During the Session of the Legislative Council, a rumour arose that a 

 planter had imported coffee plants from India, which caused anxiety. 



The matter was finally arranged by the Hon DeB. S. Heaven, re- 

 presenting especially the Coffee Planters of the Blue Mountains, and 

 the Hon. J. T. Palache, representing especially the Coffee Planters of 

 Manchester, and myself, approaching His Excellency the Governor, who 

 then issued a Proclamation forbidding the introduction of seeds or 

 plants of Coffee from any other source than Kew Gardens, and then 

 only when imported by the Director of Public Gardens and Plantations. 



Coco-nut, &c. 



I have examined in several parts of the Island a large number of 

 examples of so called disease of the Coco-nut, in one case travelling to 

 a property near N. Negril Point. 



In very many instances I believe the unhealthiness and death of the 

 palms is due entirely to the unsuitable nature of the soil and climate. 

 This is eminently so in the case of the Palisadoes plantation. So long 

 as the Government, through this Department, undertook the care of the 

 Coco-nut pabns ; when bush was cleared, pigs and goats kept out, and 

 the trees manured, they throve and bore fairly well. But from the time 

 that the Government leased the plantation in May, 1887, the trees 

 have rapidly deteriorated, and very many have died out altogether. My 



