ENEMIES OF FARMERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 9 November 1927, Page 7

ENEMIES OF FARMERS

ATTACKS ON PESTS

DR. TILLYARD IN AUSTRALIA Australia has sternly sot its shoulder to the wheel to increase its production, and one way it has chosen, in co-opera-tion with the authorities of Britain and other dominions, i«, to wage bitter war on the enemies of the primary pro-ducers-—those pests whose depreciations on livestock and plant life and the soil run into millions of pounds yearly (writes the Auckland “Herald’s” Sydney representative). In Australia alone it is estimated that £10,000,000 is lost every J’car 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 l advise it.

Dr. Tillyard has visited Sydney, Canberra, ami Melbourne in bis interviews with the Australian authorities. He has expressed the opinion that tho most crying need of the Commonwealth : is undoubtedly intense research into the sheep blowlly 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 bo the first niethod of attack on the blowfly to be investigated, and if this fails, there are numerous methods which can. he tried. Professor Watt, of Sydney University, who recently from a world tour, further heartened tho 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 tho bureau bad great hopes of a now parasite of the blowfly. The parasite was now being introduced into Australia. . Another Australian pent 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, ho says, have been found will feed exclusively on tho 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 whilo in Canberra of being tho first scientist to bo invited to address both Houses of the Federal Parliament. Members gathered in the King’s Hall in tho 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 tho importance of research on a large scale.