94 
Conclusion. 
It will be seen that the activities of the inspecting staff are 
fairly numerous and show every prospect of increasing largely in the 
future. Nearly all the lines of work* are of considerable importance, 
as I think will be readily admitted, and new methods of dealing 
with new diseases may become necessary as time passes and local 
fungi become more and more adapted to rubber as a host plant. If 
all these known and possible future diseases are to be kept well under 
control, the inspecting officers will be kept busy, and in fact the 
work that* is even now necessary bids fair to grow beyond the 
capacities of the present subordinate staff, so that a scheme for 
increasing it in the near future is being drawn up in order to keep 
pace with the needs of small and large planters. 
Even the short experience so far available seems to indicate the 
real value of inspection work for disease control, though the full 
results obtainable can only be arrived at slowly after many years of 
careful and patient educative work. 
Discussion. 
Mr. Coombs asked Mr. R. M. Richards whether he had in his 
experience met actual cases of death of coconut palms which could be 
assigned to Pestalozzia and whether under conditions obtaining on the 
best estates here it was not advisable to leave the palms to recover 
from the disease themselves. Also if from the point of view of 
general sanitation it would be advisable to remove the tree creeper 
so common in old palms. 
Mr. R. M. Richards replied that he had seen rare instances of 
grown palms which had succumbed to Pestalozzia attacks. In cases 
of attacks of this disease in nurseries it was not advisable to leave 
matters to chance. In reply to the second question he did not 
consider it necessary to clean up the creeper (a fern) from palms as 
he had never found the creeper causing injury. 
Mr. P. B. Richards asked Mr. R. M. Richards whether he had 
tried spraying with contact poisons applied with a power sprayer, 
for the destruction of Brachartona. 
Mr. R. M. Richards said that he tried all forms of sprayers, 
except a power sprayer,- and found that spraying was inefficient. He 
stated that singeing and hand collecting was, in his opinion, the only 
way of dealing with the pest. 
Mr. Vaughan Smith asked Mr. South what steps had been taken 
to control coconut beetles in the kampongs in the Bagan Uatoh 
district. 
Mr. South replied that the usual routine inspection had been 
carried out throughout last year and a few cases had been taken 
in court in most months of the year, but the results were not very 
satisfactory and the Assistant Agricultural Inspector was intending 
to give the matter his personal attention this year. 
