Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from Fiji times, 14 December 1889, p. 2 (B89.12.05). The text was introduced by the following letter: 'SIR, – The enclosed was handed me some time ago by Mr. Kopsen, as it may interest banana planters I send it to you for publication. You might call the attention of the gentleman from Kew to its subject matter. – I am, &c., H. L. Tripp.'

The 'gentleman from Kew' was probably Daniel Yeoward, who arrived in Fiji shortly before this date.

Internal evidence of the letter and its publication suggests that the letter to which M was replying was written in November 1888. The present item is therefore dated to January 1889 as the latest likely date that it would have been written if, as was M's usual practice, he replied promptly upon receiving Kopsen's letter.

SIR. —

In reply to your letter of the 25th Nov.,

2

Letter not found.

I have the honor to inform you, that as in the Victorian clime we cannot grow bananas remuneratively, no original observations on the banana-disease are extant here. It seems however, that the disease in Fiji is similar to that, investigated by Dr. Joseph Bancroft in Brisbane so carefully,

3

Bancroft (1879) p. 11. The text is preceded by two of Bancroft’s sketches, including that of diseased banana roots showing the parasite.

where a very minute parasite, an Anguillula,

4

A nematode.

attacks the banana-plants, particularly their roots. Dr. Bancroft advises soap-water, also tobacco infusion or decoction of tobacco leaf fresh, or carbolic acid water as remedies. When ever the roots of the bananas show signs of disease, the ground should be soaked with one or the other of the liquids mentioned and the plants repeatedly syringed with these liquids; and if this fails as well as such other treatments as with a decoction of the leaves of the Agave (American Aloe) or with strong liquids from wood-ashes, the soil should be ploughed up, left for awhile fallow, and then some other culture plant, now

5

not?

harboring Anguillula parasites be resorted to for a while. Then planting should subsequently be done from unaffected localities, of which there must be many in the Fiji Group.

It would be of interest to learn, whether the Fijians had to cope with the banana disease already prior to European Colonisation.

Some Bisulphide of Carbon might also experimentally be instilled into the ground of diseased banana plantations.

6

Bancroft's work and M's 'judicious advice' in this letter were reported to the Colonial Office in a letter from W. Thiselton-Dyer to J. Bramston, 13 November 1890, published in 'Banana disease in Fiji', Kew bulletin of miscellaneous information, no. 48, pp. 272-3 (1890); the advice was reiterated in Kew bulletin of miscellaneous information, no. 62, pp. 48-9 (1892), quoting further work by the NSW Plant Pathologist N. A. Cobb that supported M's extrapolation, from Bancroft's work, that nematodes were involved.