906 THE chairman's address. 



action in these matters is gaining ground, and becoming more 

 widely acknowledged, and while also recognising the value of these 

 publications, one cannot but feel that there is also represented 

 here some waste of energy. Climatic conditions, as well as insect, 

 fungoid, and other pests recognise no intercolonial boundaries, 

 nor do the scientific principles which ought to regulate the 

 operations of the agriculturalist and the pastoralist in South 

 Australia, differ materially from those needful to guide his fellow 

 worker in Victoria, New South Wales or Queensland. And 

 though competition within reasonable limits is both desirable and 

 beneficial, yet there is so much to be done that a certain amount 

 of intercolonial federation for scientific purposes not only in 

 bringing about wise and uniform legislation, but in parcelling out 

 the work to be attempted, and in sharing results, might and 

 probably would, prevent unnecessary duplication and triplication 

 of work, and of issuing reports, events which are likely to happen 

 if each colony works independently, instead of the whole of the 

 colonies unitedly. Indeed I find that the late Mr. Frazer S. Craw- 

 ford, whose recent death our South Australian friends have so 

 much reason to deplore, in his evidence before the Victorian 

 Royal Commission pleads for the establishment of a " central 

 department for the south-eastern group of colonies, after the style 

 of the American Department of Agi'iculture " ; though at the same 

 time he expresses a fear that the idea may seem Utopian. 



Certainly the year 1890 has been prolific of swarms of animal 

 life, not always beneficial, as well as of the attacks of fungoid pests. 

 To some of these your attention has been drawn from time to time 

 at our meetings by the exhibition of specimens, and by the remarks 

 which these provoked. Early in the year many vineyards in 

 certain districts both in this colony and Victoria were infested by 

 myriads of bugs which I am informed by Mr. Skuse, who has 

 submitted specimens to Dr. Bergroth of Finland, are probably an 

 undescribed species of JVysius (family Lygceidce), a genus not 

 hitherto recorded from Australia. 



Last summer and again this year pastoralists in the eastern 

 colonies and South Australia have been troubled with plagues of 



