WAR ON PESTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 468, 25 September 1928, Page 16

WAR ON PESTS

BIG GRANT FOR AUSTRALIA DR. TILLYARD’S MISSION (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Monday. Having secured from the Empire Marketing Board a grant of £62,500 for the building of an entomological research station for Australia, Dr. R. J. Tillyard, Director of the Commonwealth Entomological Research, is returning to Australia and is a passenger by the Maunganui. Dr. Tillyard’s mission was in connection with the organisation of his department’s scheme. The Empire Marketing Board’s grant would cover the cost of the buildings. The Commonwealth Government proposed to vote a similar amount toward the permanent establishment of the scheme. There would be a central research station at Canberra and branches in the various States.

The work of the institution would be confined to absolute basic research into the entomological problems of Australia, covering such pests as the blowfly, the buffalo fly, many fruit pests, grass grubs and noxious weeds. The Commonwealth entomological research station was being founded under the auspices of the Australian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and would be conducted on the most modern lines and wholly under biological control. The grant made by the Empire Marketing Board was the largest so far voted in aid of any Empire research scheme. "If we can solve the blowfly or buffalo fly .problems,” said Dr. Tillyard, "we shall have earned the upkeep of the station for 100 years in the savings to the primary industries.”