33 
above mentioned shows that the coloring is due to a rather in- 
sohible gummy substance (not a true gum) that more or less 
completely plugs the vessels and cells of the xylem. In this 
bacteria and, in some cases, fungus hypae, were found imbedded. 
Bacteria organisms isolated in Central America from diseased 
material have been cultivated by the writer and inoculated into 
liealthy plants on the plantations and in greenhouses of the De- 
partment of Agriculture in Washington. The results of this 
phase of the investigation will be given later. It may be stated, 
however, that the blight is in all probability a vegetable parasite 
which makes its entrance into the plant through the rhizome or 
roots. 
No good method of control of the disease has yet been found. 
The progress of the disease in its early stages may be delayed 
by digging out and burning diseased plants, replacing them with 
healthy suckers. 
The hope of continuing the banana industry successfully in 
the affected districts lies in the substitution of an immune variety. 
This the writer has found in a Chinese banana now occasionally 
grown in Central America. This sort is easily g'rown, yields 
good fruit, and has been found entirely resistant. The plantain 
is slightly but not seriously affected by the blight. The red 
banana is also subject to this blight, but less than the common 
yellow (Martinique) variety. 
BANANA DISEASES IN CUBA. 
By Dr. Edwin F. Smith. 
Aly attention was first called to this disease in December, 1908, 
by Mr. Horne, of the Cuban Experiment Station, who requested 
me to study the cause of the disease. Up to this time I have 
been unable to visit western Cuba where it prevails, especially in 
bananas used as shade for tobacco, but I have received several 
lots of diseased material, and now have affected plants growing 
in one of the Washington hothouses. 
The signs of the disease so far as I have been able to obtain 
them from Cubans, and as the result of my own examinations, 
correspond quite closely to those described by Dr. McKenny, 
and also to the banana disease described by Mr. Earle from 
Jamaica in 1903. A similar, if not identical, disease prevails in 
Trinidad, according to statements made to me by Mr. James 
Birch Rorer, from whom I have also received alcoholic material. 
A similar disease occurs in Dutch Guiana, according to state- 
ments recently received by me from Dr. van Hall, director of the 
experiment station in Suriname. I am inclined to think that the 
Central American disease is also the same as this disease, al- 
