668 Agricultural Gazette of N.SJF. [Anff. 3, 1D08. 



and lias not iiiij)rovecl since the last records were coinpilcd, and as each 

 hectolitre is valued at £i, the loss is a national one. There is a standing 

 rewai'd oll'cred by the Italian Government of 6,000 lire for any effective remedy 

 f<jr the destruction of the olive fly, so that all the Italian entomologists are 

 turnijig their attention to this pest. Professor Silv(>stri is a great believer 

 in its control by parasites, and parasites irione, while the other side, 

 r('j)resented ])y Professor Berlese at Florence, though they ])clieve that the 

 indigenous parasites will do some of the woik, also advocatr the use of 

 mechanical means to sup])l('iiu'iit the work, and Berlese has usnl a mixture 

 be has compounded of a sweet spray consisting of arsenic, honey, and molasses 

 diluted with water which he has sprayed over infested areas with marked 

 success, the adult flies coming into the poison and dying after feeding upon it. 

 The chief difficulty is the expense, and tlie fact that bea^'y rain washes it ott". 

 He is now experimenting with jars or small ])ottles containing this mixture 

 hung in the trees with bundles of cotton threads placed in the bottles and 

 trailing several feet, down which the fluid is flrawn, and upon which the flies 

 rest and feed. 



Professor Silvestri claims that, if sprays are used, all the parasites will be 

 destroyed, but up to the present, as far as I can learn from both sides (though 

 there is much more hope for a parasite to be effective in a thin fleshed fruit 

 like an olive, where the maggot is close to the surface, than in an orange where 

 the maggot is out of reach), after all these years, where the parasites have had 

 a fair field, with nothing to disturb them (and quite a number have been bi-ed 

 fi-om the fruit-fly maggots and pupaj of the olive flies) yet they have not 

 checked their increase. 



At Professor Silvestri's suggestion, furnished with a letter of introduction 

 to Dr. Perez in charge of the Agricultural work in Sicily, I started off to 

 Palermo by the mail-boat, reached the town at daylight, i-oused him out of 

 bed at 7'."}0 on Suiiday morning, spent the day with him in the lemon 

 orchards outside the town, and left for Naples again the same night. 



In consequence of the bad condition of the lemon trade, the greater pare 

 of the crop is still on the trees. There is a large area of rich volcainc land 

 between the mountains and the town covered with oicliards, the greater part 

 of which are devoted to lemons, all of which are undci- irrigation. Most of the 

 trees are small, though many of them are sixty or seventy years old, because 

 they are planted so close together, and as they are all grafted on sour orange 

 stocks about 4 feet above the ground, have all their foliage above interlacing 

 their branches, and thus form a regular thicket, so they have little chance to 

 expand. They claim that this high grafting or budding (for they do both) 

 prevents collar rot or gumming. J)r. Perez says that every year they lose a 

 certain percentage of the oranges in iSicily and on the mainland in Southern 

 Italy from the fruit-fly, but it is not considered a serious pest, and no pre- 

 cautionaiy methods are adoj^ted against it. From Naples I went to Rome, 

 where I stopped a day to see Dr. Grassi, the great authority on White Ants 

 {Termitlda'), and wejit over the Agricultural Museum, where there is a very 

 fine collection of agricultural products, among them a number of samples of 



