PHYLLOXERA.

Otago Witness, Issue 1602, 5 August 1882, Page 8

PHYLLOXERA.

Mr Isitt, secretary to the Horticultural Society of Christchurch, has received the fol« lowing letter from Baron Mueller, Government Botanist for the Colony of Victoria : —

Melbourne, July 13th, 1882. To F. Whitmore Isitt, Esq. Sir,— ln reply to your letter, received thia day, I most assuredly advise that your intention to petition the New Zealand Government not to allow the importation of any plants o» cuttings or fruits of the grape vine be carried into effect. Indeed, by my own impulse I urged on influential New Zealand correspondents some time ago that such a measure as the Horticultural Society of Christchurch very properly advocates should become law. New Zealand, by its insular position, will derive full benefit from an Act of the Legislature to this effect, while countries or Colonies territorially connected, if even invaded only at one place, are not so sure to protect themselves against the influx and spreading of the Phylloxera vastatrix, however rigorously the importation of grapes and' of vine plants and cuttings may be prevented from adjoining places. It will be even a matter of consideration for New Zealand whether or not every kind of living plant should be prohibited from being sent there from any country in which the Phylloxera vastatrix has established itself. By some such full and complete interdict the dreaded insect has been kept out of the islands of Greece, while all the other countries around tho Mediterranean Sea became infected 'by this insect pest in the vineries. — I have, &c, F. Yon Mueller, M.D. ? Government Botanist for tho Colony of Victoria.