MORE FRUIT FLY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 62, 6 December 1907, Page 2

MORE FRUIT FLY.

319 CASES CONDEMNED. A SERIOUS PROBLEM. There has been a big slaughter of fly-in-fested Sydney fruit atr Wellington in the latest shipment. The lines condemned consisted of 319 cases, in nine consignments. Sis of tho linos were apricots, and the other were peaches, oranges, and mandarins respectively. New South Wales (with Queensland) seems to be our most prolific sourco of fruit-fly. While we cannot but sympathise with the growers in that State In their embarrassment, we have a serious problem always confronting us that is more pressing than our sympathy. We have to be perpetually watchful to see that the steps we.are taking in the inspection of the imported fruit is sufficient safeguard for our valuable local industry. Our system at presont is to carefully examine .a selected number of cases and, if they are clean to the satisfaet-ion of the inspector, the rest of that particular line is passed through unexamined. We are thus staking tremendous odds on the discretion of the inspectors and on Providence in regard to the cases which are unopened, and, as the Biologist recently pointed out to a Dominion interviewer, our importers have much to bo thankful for in the' lenience which is extended to them. The success with which the system has worked in the via?t is a remarkable tribute to the care, fkill, and good sense of the officers who are doing the inspecting—men of whom the local trowors and the general publiosee so little that they are generally almost entirely forgotten. Nevertheless, the one-alarming instance (last spring) or the fly getting a hold in Napier and Blenheim orchards is the strongest possible argument against any relaxation and in f&vour of greater stringency if that should bo deemed desirable. The discovery of ■ tho kerosene oure fortunately lessens to a very great extent the destruc-. tiveness of the fly and offers a point of attack on a pest which was hitherto regarded as well nigh linvulnerable, But that cure is still very new, and tho mere arrival of infested consignments seems to show that the cure, if it has been used at all, has only a limited effect. TROUBLE AT AUCKLAND, There has been plenty of trouble with fruit-fly in the shipments that have been arriving at Auckland, and the danger of escape is there greater, because there , are no wharf gates that can be shut at nights. . Mr. Havnett, the Government inspector there', was yesterday discovered by a "Star" reporter in the fumigating shea, carefully examining eonift apricots. Upon being asked what he was hunting for, Mr. Harriett said: "Come in and I will shoT you one of the worst pests the fruit growers have-to deal with. I have seized these thirty cases of apricots, mandarins, oranges, and pears, because they ar& infected -svith tho Mediterranean fruit-fly. Sometimes," said Mr.. Harriett, "you will get a hundred grubs in one fruit.- Here they are crawling over the floor from the eases. They are very hardy little pests, too. Twenty minutes in formalin does not Kill them; they crawl out of sulphuric acid or carbolic acid, but a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids seems fatal to them. " The Mediterranean fly," he continued., "is worse than the Queensland fly, and it is found in nearly every fruit that comes hero: oranges, lemons, mandarins, bananas, pineapples, apricots, plums, pears, mangoes, peaches, apples, , grenadillas passion, fruit and even water melons and encumbers. I have found the grub in all those.".Referring to the method of inspection, he said: "We do our best, but our work is made much harder owing to there being no gates to tho wharves. In Wellington nothing can be removed off the wharves after five o'clock, when the gates are closed, but hero people caii tako it away at any time of the night, which, makes our work much harder to carry out." ' . . ;.' ; .■''■■ .