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the fungus is established. We cannot stop this but we can 
prevent the introduction of plants infected by a fungus which has 
adapted itself so as to be parasitic on any plant we are cultivating, 
and its being put in contact with other healthy plants of the same 
kind, and this is or should be the object aimed at by all legislation 
against the introduction of fungus pests. 
One of the difficulties in carrying out the disinfection laws of the 
various countries seems to be due to the smallness or incompetence 
of the staff. A case of plants sent from Singapore to an island where 
the laws were stringent was entirely destroyed by the disinfecting 
process, entailing a great loss on the importer. Another planter com- 
plains that the delay in disinfecting and inspecting is so great that 
the plants, are half dead when they arrive at his estate. In some 
countries formerly, at least, no plants of any kind were allowed to be 
imported, preventing thereby any progress in agriculture at all. It 
should not be difficult to prevent the importation of sick plants with- 
out discouraging the importer of new strains or new species of useful 
plants which may be of the greatest value in the future to his country: 
At the same time, in the case of any disease of a cultivated plant 
appearing it should be possible and compulsory for the planter to 
report to a scientific staff who could take steps to prevent the disease 
increasing or being spread by sending infected plants from one estate 
to another. As so many of our plant diseases are of local origin I 
hold this system to be actually of more importance than preventing 
accidental introduction of the pest from outside, which is none the 
less a point not to be lost sight of. — Ed. 
A NOTE ON SOME RECENT FUNGUS LITERATURE. 
Bulletin No. 65, Vol. IX, of the Department of Agriculture of 
Trinidad contains, among other interesting articles, an admirable 
account of some recent investigation on pod-rot, chupon-wilt and 
canker of cacao by Mr. J. B. Rorer, the Mycologist to the Department. 
In the first part of the work the autho- deals with the history of 
pod-rot and canker, mentioning Harrison’s report (1895) on a disease 
which occurred in Grenada, Surinam and British Guiana and which 
was undoubtedly pod-rot, and describing Willis’ and Green’s report 
{1897) on “canker” of cacao in Ceylon, thus showing that the first 
accurate descriptions of pod-rot and canker came respectively from 
the West and from the East. He next describes Carruthers’ work in 
Ceylon (1898) in which the pod disease was attributed to one of the 
Peronosporaceae and the canker to a species of Nectria which was 
afterwards identified as N. ditissima, Tul. ; he mentions Howard’s 
work in Grenada (1901) o na pad disease of cacao caused by Diplodia 
cacaoicola, P. Henn., and on a canker disease of the stem which was 
attributed to two fungi named by Massee Nectria Theobromae and 
Calonectria flavida ; he points out that Hart was the first to make 
