Nutfall In The Solomons
p. 40 · Read in the full issue
Letter to the Editor 1 REFER to Dr. J. S. Phillips’ letter on page 24 of your issue for March on the subject of immature nutfall of coconuts.
Dr. Phillips states that Mr. R. A. Lever (former entomologist to the British Solomon Islands) first “cast suspicion” on the bug Amblypelta as the cause of the injury. This, however, is hardly correct.
In the issue of the BSIP “Agricultural Gazette” for April, 1935, (Vol. 111, No. 2), Mr. Lever showed that Amblypelta is instrumental in causing nutfall; and in the number for October, 1935 (Vol. 111, No. 4) he gives full details of experi ments which proved that this bug causes 90 per cent, nutfall, compared with only 70 per cent, when the insect was excluded from the young nuts. (This latter figure was later found to be only 60 per cent.) It should be borne in mind that the infrequent pre-war mail service imposed a great delay in having the “Gazette” published; as an article printed in Syd ney in April, 1935, was the result of experiments carried out and written up in the Solomons months beforehand.
This letter should be read in conjunc tion with my previous one of September 27, 1941, on the same subject.
I am, etc.,
H. W. Jack
Director of Agriculture.
Suva, 29/4/1942.
Colonel George Golding, who was Inspector-General of Constabulary in Fiji from 1919 to 1927, when he retired from the Colonial Service, died recently in England at the age of 71.