180 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA : 



The strawberry, it must be remembered, is a very 

 delicate fruit, and oue which if sprayed or otherwise 

 treated when ripe, or even near that stage, will suffer so 

 much as to be unsaleable. An experiment which was 

 made in Mr. Thiele's orchard convinced both him and 

 myself that the benzole, although fatal to the Rutherglen 

 Bug pest and uninjurious to the leaves of the vines, w^as 

 quite fatal to the fruit of strawberries, which at that time 

 were being attacked by a larger kind of plant bug, which 

 will be described and dealt with in Part III. of this Hand- 

 book. 



Strawberries, if grown well and on suitable soil, is one 

 of our best paying crops, so it behoves every grower of 

 them, and of raspben-ies also, to be on the alert. If every 

 grower will only do a little towards the destruction of the 

 strawberry beetle, I feel certain that we may be able to 

 successfully resist its attacks. 



As dealing with this comparatively new pest is one of 

 experiment only, care should be taken to ascertain if it is 

 really the same insect which is said to attack the rasp- 

 berry ; if it proves to be so, then the treatment here re- 

 commended will apply to both plants, but if on the other 

 hand it should prove to be a different one, we must pro- 

 bably find other means of dealing with it. This I hope 

 to investigate for myself as soon as time will permit. I 

 shall be very glad to receive from any one, grower or 

 otherwise, specimens of the raspberry beetle in question, 

 together with any notes as to its habits, &c., as I should 

 like, if possible, to have some account of this pest, sup- 

 posing it proves to be a different one, in Part III. of this 

 Handbook. 



