I 
m 
The Director or the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, advised that it would not oe 
possible to make an adequate investigation in less than 12 months, and it was found 
necessary to offer a salary of £900 a year in order to obtain the services of a suitable 
officer. Apart from salary, travelling expenses would be heavy, and it became clear 
that the work could not be carried out for $4,000. It was represented to the Com¬ 
mittee that, having regard to the exceptionally heavy expenditure in which the 
Colony had been involved, owing to the war, to a serious fire at Belize, which des¬ 
troyed the public offices and to other causes, it was not in a position to meet the extra 
cost, and the Committee agreed to recommend that the cost should be defrayed from 
the Research Grant up to a maximum of £1,000, which was approximately the 
equivalent of $4,000 at the current rate of exchange. 
Mr. C. Hummel, who was a fully trained forest officer and had formerly been 
employed in the Forestry Department of the Federated Malay States, was selected 
to undertake the investigation, and embarked for the Colony in July, 1920. 
Panama Disease of Bananas .—This disease, which has had devastating effects 
on the banana industry in the greater part of Central America, has appeared in 
the Stann Creek valley, where it threatens the banana plantations with extinction. 
It is due to the presence in the soil of a vegetable organism known as a Fusarium. 
The disease has already received considerable study, but no remedy has been found, 
and the only measures in force against it are designed to check its spread by means 
of quarantining infected areas. 
The disease has also entered Jamaica, but apparently in a less virulent form. 
In that Colony quarantine measures have hitherto proved fully effectual in prevent¬ 
ing it from spreading, but the Stann Creek valley, in British Honduras, is liable to 
floods, which carry the disease, and quarantine has proved of little avail. 
Great efforts have been made by the United Fruit Company of Boston, US.A., 
to find a variety of banana which is immune to the disease and is also suitable for 
commercial cultivation. Varieties are known which are highly resistant or alto¬ 
gether immune, but while some of these are suitable for local use they are unfit for 
export owing to bad keeping qualities or other defects. 
The Committee is in communication with the Director of the Royal Gardens, 
Kew, the Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture, and the Colonial Governments 
concerned, with a view to arriving at a conclusion upon the question whether the 
prospect of success is sufficient to justify expenditure upon further experiments. 
Minerals .— 1 The Committee were advised that the mineral resources of British 
Honduras were little knoAvn, but that there were possibilities that mineral oil or 
bauxite might be discovered in the more recent rocks which occupy most of the area, 
and that gold or other minerals might occur in the older beds which underlie them 
and outcrop in the interior. The Committee were also advised that in any case R was 
desirable that the Colony should be prospected and examined geologically tor the 
sake both of the mineral resources that might be disclosed and of the assistance that 
might be rendered to agricultural development. The Legislative Council of the 
Colony were in full accord regarding the need for investigation, but had been unable 
to proceed for lack of sufficient funds. The Committee was of opinion that a suitable 
officer should be employed upon a general geological and mineralogical examination 
of the Colony during a period of three years, at an estimated total expenditure o 
about £4.BOO, inclusive of salary, the cost of apparatus, travelling and incidental 
expenses. The Committee recommended that one-half of this sum should be paici 
from the Research Grant, provided that the Colony undertook to pay the other halt. 
The Colony has since given this undertaking. 
It was necessary to require a high physical standard in the candidates for this 
employment, which involves a rough life in the bush. As a result two selected 
candidates were rejected by the medical adviser, involving considerable delay. How¬ 
ever an Australian candidate, Mr. Ower, has now been appointed and will shortly 
proceed to England to confer with the Petroleum Department, the Imperial Mineral 
Resources Bureau and the Colonial Office regarding his programme ana methods 
of work. 
Jamaica. 
This Colony is interested in the question of Panama disease of bananas which 
is dealt with under the head of British Honduras. 
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