Dec u 1^92-] 
TtiE TROflCAt 
AGRiCULtUEiSt, 
4Q3 
bACAO EOOT DISEASE IN THE WEST 
INDIES. 
{Continued from page 351.) 
Nor does this root fungus contine itself to any 
bbe species or order of plants ; but affects alike 
the mango, the orange, the coffee or the cacao 
in short almost anything from a sugarcane to a 
breadfruit, no diversity being apparently wide 
enough in the structure of the plant or root to 
deny to it a congenial nursery and home, " It is 
found," says the Keport " in all its glory at the 
'Latent' Estate. It has strayed into the 'Malgretout' 
Estate where the Liberian Coffee seems to be 
specially selected." 
" At Unrrey's Rest, cacao trees have been killed, be- 
sides coffee, bananas and two line orange trees." 
Thus far we have tangible facts resting on the 
evidence of one's observation. But now we come to 
a study of the approximate causes ; and in doing 
80, we are naturally obliged to step outside the 
limits of observation and patent facts; into the domain 
of speculation. How far the conclusions arrived at 
are justifiable, remains to be proved later on, 
that is to say, when a sufficient length of time shall 
have elapsed after the reaaoval of the suspected causes, 
to be able to say with certainty that the disease has 
disappeared with the removal of these alleged causesi 
Id the cases that came under bid observation, Mr, 
Barber has been led to conclude that the disease is 
primarily and principiUy traceable to the preieuce cf 
aeoaying stumpj left on the gtounJ, combiued with 
the " slovenly planting of more trees than the ground 
caa contain ;" and the reme 'y he baspresoribed in the 
oases under oonaideratioa ia to " bnro every stump 
and as mnoh of the affected roots ss possible." 
In- Jamaica Mr, Barber noticed a similar fuogua 
oalled looally "Saltpetre" in the cacao and ooffte, 
Mr. Fawoett, the Director of the Botanic Department, 
forwarded the following prescriptiou : — 
" Try Ferrous Sulphate {s<re8n vitriol) for your root 
myceliam. It is an excellent manure used at the rate 
of i cwt. to the acre and kills fuogi. lo wet weather 
it is sufficient to sprinkle itouthe ground, and the 
rain will dissoli'e it and curry ii down to the root." 
Mr. Lockhart, who communicated with Mr. Barber, 
and appears to have given him valuable ioformation, 
describes snother fungus as attacking not fields or 
patches but isolated cacao trees at Mitcham. It ia 
kaid to be troublesome but not fatal in all casep. It 
is a fungus found not in the soil or root but above 
gronod, and so this for distiaction is called a " branch 
lungus." 
The following is a full and detailed description of 
the same : — 
" It is peculiar and well marked ; and appears to 
travel up the brinohes, making its w»y principally in 
the chick bast layers. Oq examining a diseased 
branch the following regions may be looked for, 
working downwerds : — 
(1) Hta'tby stem-surface, outer bark normal, tbia 
and delicate. 
(2) A delicate film of externa', closely adpressed 
glistening hyphtu resembling the track of a sna'l. 
(3) Flesh-ooloured bodies (spore bodies) principally 
at the angles of the lenticeU; gum is trei^uently 
found exuding among these bodies from rents in the 
bark— also at (1) and (2). 
(4) The surface becomes covered with a velvsty, 
flesb-oolonred layer with small dark letter-like erosions. 
(5) The bark becomes brown, decayed: bast rottea- 
the bast is largely cracked and the decay frequently 
extends some way into^the wood. 
(6) In many cafes branches eesra to recover. A 
callus is formed by the o«mbium and grows around 
as if attempting to cover np the injured parts. A long 
rleft io healed branches frequently iudiciitea the junc- 
tion of the two callus. masses over a dead place ; 
and a section of the stem at such parts shows a large 
dead tract underneath the callua, buried by subsequent 
growth." 
It ia recommendud in this difcaio — which is not 
10 Utal M the toot faugug inabmucU aa IhQ tteea 
often recover from the ntlack — to paint the infected 
branches with some f uugus-deitroying compound ; 
such as weak cirbolio acid or carbolized tar, carrosiva 
BUblimate, and green vitriol. This disease has not 
yet been traced to any known cause, m even isolated 
trees have succumbed to it. 
To turu our attention to the more fatal root diseisa 
whose presence has been traced to decaying stumps and 
clos3 planting : All we in Oeylon can say is that 
wo have both causes preteot in our cioao plantations. 
In the new forest or jungle-clearings there is always 
the stump left in the ground after the burn — and 
in the older plantations, where a superabundance of 
the shade growth is cut down, trunk aud branch and 
not merely thinned out^, then the stump is in many 
instances left in the soil especially when too laige for 
convenient eradication, so that there is one 
of thefaotorsor external agents present; and the other of 
the two mentioned is said to be olose planting : by 
which we should understand that there is a crowding^ 
of roots witbia a limited area of soil. 
It need not for a moment bi supposed that 
thj sperial root of the cacao is the only one likely 
to contribute towards the outbreak ot the root disease; 
for it has appeared in every sort of root from the 
lowly sugarcane and banana to the higher orders of 
bread-fruit and mangoe. It is therefore not the 
slovenly ji'anting of cacao alone that contributes to 
the miaohief. The general crowding of Boots has to ba 
equally guarded against. 
Our Ceylon planters, therefore, who are adventuring 
on this product so largely at present, whether they 
be men of limited experience or of great experience 
in g'eneral matters of planting, will no doubt be 
careful not to rest contented in the security of 
having put their plants out twelve or fourteen feet 
apart : for in every plantation in the island the 
tendency is, under the assurance that shade and 
shelter are absolutely ueoeseary for the cacao, to plant 
all manner of choice shade trees as quickly as possible. 
And it may thus come about some day that in soma 
admirable damp situation for the caoao where the 
soil is rich, the land as flat as a tenuis court, with 
too m.ucb shade and iosuffioient drainage from the 
nature of the land, and an overcrowding of roots in 
general, a root fungus may be started as a pest in Ceylon. 
It will, therefore, be none too soon to warn the 
public of the danger that may be run by the caoao 
planter in any part of the tropics. 
And the failure of the crops in Dominica in 1892 
and 1893, which called for the Report under consider^ 
ation may well be offered as an illastratioa and 
a warniog to all. 
TEA DRINKING AND MORALS IN WALES. 
The Daily C/ico/iic/e in reviewing "Glimpses of 
Welsh Life and Oharaoter " by Marie Trevelyan, 
has the following ; — 
Again, as in other lands, so also in Wales, there 
was no great gulf fixed between the upper and 
lower classes a hundred years ago. There was a 
much freer social commingling in those good old 
times than in these degenerate modern days. 
" It was nothing unusual to sea the wealthy 
landlord and poor tenant riding abreast to 
market, and sitting down at the same ' market ordin- 
ary.'" " Money makes the mare to go, " said a poor 
■Welshman to a rich neighbour. "Aye, aye, boy! but 
its manners make the man," was the reply. No 
longer do servants remain a life-time with their 
employers, leaving only to be buried, or, it may be, to 
be married ; and it is only in the smaller farmhouses 
that they sit at the same table with the master anti 
mistress. The analytical spirit of the newer age has 
established discriminations. The great cause of this 
notable alteration in social life Miss Trevelyan has 
discovered from an old diarist. It is the " exorbitant 
practice of tea-drinking which has corrupted tho 
morals of people of every rank." Lamentable de- 
clension from the days of the potency of iiiethegliu t 
Especially among the hill women, among the most 
intensely WelsU of Welshmen, the colliors and 
uiinet's, ia ihk tuiuQua devoii^n to .uumvoMfttf^ 
