FIREBLIGHT MENACE

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1927, Page 9

FIREBLIGHT MENACE

NEED FOR SAFEGUARDS. Nelson, May 30. In an address to the conference of Nelson fruitgrowers to-day, Dr. Tillyard, of the Cawthron Institute, dealt with the fireblight menace. He said ho had no hesitation in telling fruitgrowers that it would pay them to provide any kind of insurance they could to keep fireblight out of the district. “I beg you not to be guided by the experience of any other body of growers in any part of the World,” he said. He was not an alarmist. They must spend all the thought and care they possibly could in keeping this dreadful disease out of the province, and when it did. come’ they must deal with it right away and not let it get a year’s start. He had told th*sm previously they would be lucky if they did not get it within five years. That period was just past. They would b<; lucky, however, if it was not in the district at present. It was in Hawke’s Bay for a year before being discovered. Fireblight had spread steadily southward to the Lower Hutt, and would be all through the apples and pears in Wei lington next year. It might crop up next in Marlborough or Christchurch, or Nelson. The sea was no barrier to fireblight, and the thing they had to do was to prevent its spread. He suggested that a sub-committee be elected to go into the matter of adapting a measure of insurance and defence. The possibilities were 1(10 to 1 that it would appear first in hawthorn. It was extremely unlikely to first come in orchards. “How are you going to stop it?” he asked, and went <sa to suggest that for three months in efieh year they should have at least one- reliable man whose business it would be to go round the whole district, map fell hedges and examine them at the beginning of winter until the blossoming period in the spring. Any suspicious-locking bits of trees could be cut out or referred to the institute. This was the first line of defence. The second line of defence would be from now on to prevent the flowering of hawthorn in the district. If they J’could stop blossom infection it was going to stop orchard infection. It was Worth their while to spend a considerable sum of money if necessary to carry this out year by year. If anyone cargo to him after ten years and said there was no fireblight in spite of all the work done he would say that it was the very best thing that had happened—they had insured against it and had been\.success-

“So far as the Cawthron Institute is concerned,” concluded Dr. Tillyarcf, “we will give you all the help we can. We are entirely at your service. The only thing we wish is that fireblight will never show its face in Nelson.” Loud applause greeted the speaker as he resumed his seat.

Mr. Stephens asked if there was any risk of infection coming to Nelson in empty returned cases of straw packing round goods. Dr. Kathleen Curtis replied that it would be possible.