GUARDING THE WHEAT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4815, 12 March 1918, Page 7

GUARDING THE WHEAT.

VI feTPALIAN PIvECALTi )NSAGAINST MICE. Alice have not appeared in wheat stacks at Victorian country railway station so far this- season. While there are indications that the pest may give trouble in some districts, no recurrence of the plague ■ of last year is anticipated. It is Stated by an official of tlio Victorian Wheat Commission last week that reports received from inspectors and from other sources show that up to the present mice had not been troublesome anywhere, hut that in a strip of country extending fom Beulah to Hopetown, on the Hopetoun lino of railway, and running east and north east to Mystic Park, and Lake Bogn, on the Swan Hill line, , they might to be have reckoned with. At the close of February last year the mouse plague existed through the Wimmera an { ] Alalle county, and was so bad in March that stacks collapsed in many places. There is. there, fore, some reason for the announcement by the officier of the Wheat Board that the damage caused by mice this year is likely to be comparatively small. Officers of the Vermin Destruction Bianch of the Lands Department have superintended the erection of mouseproof fencing around stacks which arc likely to remain a long time before the wheat can be removed to the spahoard. On the Ouyen to Murrayville line the fencing was put up before the wheat was taken in from the farms so that all danger might be guarded against. The Commission possesses enough fencing materia] to meet nil requirements, and if necessary the number of men engaged in work can be largely lneeased.