FRUIT CROP MENACED.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19430, 3 December 1934, Page 9

FRUIT CROP MENACED.

ATTACK on hopper plague. (iFrom a Correspondent.) ; MELBOURNE, November 16. Ah intensive drive against the grasshopper plague in the Mallee, covering 9. large area stretching 50 miles west of Mildura and more than 70 miles south, has begun. . At two major depots established at Merbein and Redcliffs 50 tons of poison is being mixed daily, and thousands of growers are spreading it across the line of the grasshoppers’ advance. At Thurla, about one mile south of the boundary of Redcliffs settlement, a new swarm was reported to-day, and It is said to be drifting eastwards towards Mildura. This Is a vital danger, as desperate efforts are being made to save the dried fruit crop in the Mildura district, valued at £1,000,000, the menacing horde. A newspaper correspondent who has visited the district states that the ravages of the pest are appalling. At Merrinee North, 25 miles south-west of Mildura, on the Murray Valley road, many Insects 21n In length were on the wing and countless millions clung to every green thing and blackened the road surface In a convulsive and repellant mass. Sheep and horses £re terrified, and will not move among the swarms. Fields which were green two days ago and black with grasshoppers yesterday are barren patches of sandy soil to-day. Some Idea of the devastation that grasshoppers are causing is obtained from a report from Calignan, where on one farm grasshoppers destroyed 20 tons of a wheat crop in two hours.