REPORT 
ON THE 
COCONUT DISEASE KNOWN AS BUD ROT OR HEART ROT 
BY 
Me. Wm. T. Hokne. 
Santiago de las Vegas. 
Mr. J. T. Crawley, Director, 
Estacion Central Agronomica, 
Santiago de las Vegas. 
Dear Sir: 
During the month of March last it 
was my privilege, as Plant Patholo- 
gist of the Estaci6n Central Agrono- 
mica de Cuba, to spend about two 
weeks in the neigborhood of Baracoa 
studying the coconut disease. 
Baracoa is said to be the only port 
of Cuba from which coconuts are ex- 
ported; about eighteen million nuts 
being sent out per year, although the 
number varies greatly from month to 
month. This makes a very consider- 
able industry as the product is worth 
about $300,000.00, and there is compar- 
atively little expense connected with 
producing them. 
Many years ago, it was noticed that 
the coconut thrive better at Baracoa, 
and produced more fruit than in other 
parts of the Island. When the coco- 
nuts were dying and failing in Hava- 
na and Matanzas, it was thought that 
they would never have any trouble at 
Baracoa. However, some twenty years 
ago, there was an outbreak of some 
disease among the coconuts in that 
region. There seem to have been two 
centers from which the trouble spread, 
one about 20 miles west of Baracoa, 
on the coast, and the other, at about an 
equal distance east, on the coast near 
Mata. Precisely what has passed in 
these 20 years with respect to the 
health of the coconuts, I have neither 
time nor information to discuss pro- 
perly. 
It is only within a few years that 
the trouble has appeared at the town 
of Baracoa. Yet, when I came into 
the little bay last March, the sprang- 
ling yellow tops of dying coconut trees 
could be seen scattered, here and 
there, on the low lands and hills, in 
every direction, as far as the eye could 
reach. A fine young coeal about the 
head of the bay, was badly affected, 
one part of it seemed to have all the 
trees dying. I was convinced at once 
that the trouble was being caused by 
the disease known as bud rot or heart 
rot. And subsequent studies showed 
