ENEMIES OF THE FARMERS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19150, 5 November 1927, Page 20

ENEMIES OF THE FARMERS.

ATTACKS ON PESTS.

DR. TILLYARD IN AUSTRALIA. (raou ora own cobbespoitdbst.) SYDNEY. October 20. Australia has sternly set its shoulder to the wheel to increase its production, and one way it has chosen, in cooperation with the authorities of Britain and other Dominions, is to wage bitter war on the enemies of the primary producers —those pests whose depredations on livestock and plant life and the soil run into millions of pounds yearly. In Australia alone it is estimated that £10,000,000 is lost every vear through tho ravages of insect pests. The Commonwealth Council of Scientific Research is determinedly attacking the problem, and .one way it decided to help was to invite that eminent New Zealand scientist, Dr. R. J. Tillyard, assistant director of the Cawthron Institute of Scientific Research at Nelson, to advise it. Dr. Tillyard has visited Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne in his interviews with the Australian authorities. He has expressed the opinion that the most crying need of the Commonwealth is undoubtedly intense research into the sheep blowfly problem, because the loss is so great—it is estimated at £4,000,000 a year. Though exceedingly difficult, he believes that that problem can be solved by science, but it will require great organisation and considerable expenditure of money. A parasite, he thinks, will probably be the first method of attack on the bowfly to be investigated, and if this fails there are numerous methods which cau bo tried.

Blowfly and St. John's Wort. Professor Watt,. of Sydney University, who recently returned from a world tour, further heartened the pastoralists concerning the blowfly. A work of extreme importance in this regard, he said- in a recent lecture, was being done at the Bureau of Entomology in England. The Bureau had a parasite laboratory for breeding parasites to destroy harmful insects and plants. The head of the Bureau had great hopes of a new parasite of the blowfly. The parasite was now being intrdduced into Australia.

Another Australian pest which, if it had reasoning power, would regard Dr. Tillyard as a relentless and formidable enemy, is St. John's wort, a noxious weed, which has many hundreds of thousands of acres in its grip in southern New South Wales and northern Victoria. Despite all Governmental and scientific- efforts to hold this weed in check, it has yearly eaten up thousands of acres. ' Dr. Tillyard is confident that this weed will "cease to exist in ten years. A number of little insects, he says, have been found whiclf will feed exclusively on the wort. His proposal is that the Commonwealth should establish a laboratory in the heart of the St. John's wort country, and carry out the battle against it in its midst. Dr. Tillyard, by the way, had the unique experience while in Canberra of being the first scientist to be invited to address both Houses of the Federal, Parliament. Members gathered in the King's Hall in the new Parliament House,, and were keenly interested in his remarks on the control of noxious weeds and insects. He took it as a sign that Australia is waking up to the importance of research on a large, scale.