WAR WELL WON

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1935, Page 22 (Supplement)

WAR WELL WON

DEADLY INSECT BEATEN OFF. THE COLORADO BEETLE. It is good news that the British Ministry of Agriculture has met and defeated one of the deadliest foes of agriculture that ever set foot on English soil, says the Children’s Newspaper. , This enemy is the ■ Colorado bettie, which came ashore from steamer and established itself on an allotment at Tilbury in the autumn of 1933. No sooner, was this pest seen than the Civil Service was .set to work .to inake sure that it should not spread England. The Minist - himself broadcast an appeal to all workers on the land to look out for this creature, whether in its beetle form with black spots and fines on its orange wing-cases, or in its larval stage of reddish yellow, when it feeds ion the stems and leaves of the potato plant. The beetle is a real scourge once it has established itself In a country, for the creature lays hundreds of eggs m groups of 12 or 20 on each plant. Within a week the larvae have « ner « ed ’ an .“ J® quickly do they grow and undergo tfieir transformation that three generations are produced in a single summer. , The beetle had appeared in England once before this century, enough in the same district. In 1877 it was discovered in a Texas cattle steamer at Liverpool. Immediate action was then taken by the Government, who issued orders making for aa ? y one to keep, sell, or distribute living specimens in any stage of their existence. A penalty of £lO was half of which was to be paid to the informer! • . As its name shows, the beetle is a native of America, where it was discovered in 1824 near the Upper Missouri. For some years it completely destroyed the potato crop of many States, making its way across the continent until it reached the shores of the Atlantic. The beetle made its appearance near Bordeaux, in France, over 12 years ago and cost the French Government over £1,000,000 a year in fighting it by spraying the potato plant with arsenic.