THE BLOWFLY PEST

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19578, 26 August 1933, Page 15

THE BLOWFLY PEST

VALUABLE RESEARCH WORK The sheep blowfly problem in Australia, which has become acute since the beginning of the century, receives comprehensive treatment in an admirable report issued by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the New South Wales Department of Agriculture and edited by Dr. R. J. Tillyard, chief of the division of economic entomology of the council, and Dr. H. R. Seddon, director of veterinary research for the department. Some time ago an arrangement was entered into by the two bodies mentioned whereby the combined research staffs and facilites were brought into close co-operation in an endeavour to elucidate the difficulties attending the blowfly problem and to devise means of combating the pest. The collaboration has resulted in the preparation of what must be one of the most valuable contributions yet made to the economic security of the sheep industry. The present knowledge of the problem as a whole is reviewed, results already accomplished by former and present investigators are discussed, and the scope of research now in hand, or contemplated, is outlined. The aim has been to present the knowledge in language as full as possible from technicalities so that the report will be of value to everybody connected with sheep-raising. A summary at the beginning gives a concise indication of the Information which appears in exhaustive detail in subsequent sections. It is obvious, from a study of the report in general, that the efforts made to elucidate the problem have been of an essentially practical nature. Indeed, the scientist has rarely given the working farmer a more genuine contribution to the solution of a difficulty. Every person who owns or tends sheep should make a point of benefiting from it.