5G8 Dr. Michael Grabham [May 5 y 



smaller Strelitza, waiting for a moth competent to open these folding- 

 doors and carry the concealed pollen to the inviting stigmas. 



On the other hand, we are constantly plotting: to curb the fertility 

 of some of our desirable fruits. This is especially the case with the 

 custard apple, which we select and graft from trees which bear few- 

 seeded fruits, and I learn, with much satisfaction, that a new variety 

 of Loquat tree, bearing a one-seeded fruit, has been successfully 

 introduced into Madeira, and is now coming into bearing. The 

 Loquat tree, the Japanese Eriobotria, grows in Madeira in weedy 

 profusion, rendering the whole country fragrant with its flower 

 perfume in November, and yielding masses of its attractive fruit 

 from the beginning of March until almost the end of May. The 

 British market should be flooded with Loquats in this fruit-vacant 

 season, as also with the tasty broad-bean of Madeira, which travels 

 to this country in perfection and can be supplied in profusion. 



But the oceanic climate of the Madeira district, where so much 

 of the temperate and tropical flora is blended, has been equally 

 congenial to the numerous pests in plants and animal life which 

 from time to time have been unwarily imported. Some of these, 

 Oidium and Peronospera, we have learnt to cope with, and they are 

 no longer formidable ; likewise, too, with the Phylloxera Vastatrix, 

 which in its apterous underground stages entirely destroyed the 

 Madeira vineyards before its life-history was known in the late 

 seventies of the last century, and has now become, as I predicted, 

 far less active and almost negligible in its depredations ; and thus 

 the present supply of Madeira wine is once more adequate and even 

 superabundant. I have reason to think, too, that some credit for 

 restraining the virulence of the Phylloxera is due to the Argentine 

 ant, whose presence has certainly coincided with the waning activity 

 of that Aphis. 



The Argentine ant arrived in Madeira about thirty years ago, 

 and had become well-established before its presence was suspected, 

 owing, I think, to confusion with the smaller (Ecoph&ra pusilla, then 

 universally present and since completely ousted by the Iridomyrmex 

 humilis of the Argentine. 



In America, too, this Iridomyrmex humilis attained the very first 

 rank among injurious pests before it was identified and its life-history 

 was known, but it was very soon carefully studied, and nine years 

 ago the United States Department of Agriculture issued a complete 

 account of its life-history, its spread, and misdeeds, and also suggesting 

 the means for arresting its progress. If it is true that the British 

 islands are already invaded or threatened by this pest — and the ant 

 is quite capable of withstanding the excesses of our climate — our own 

 Ministry of Agriculture might most usefully reprint and circulate 

 the American booklet, supplementing it with whatever has been 

 written in England, together with my own paper on the subject 

 read before the British Association two years ago.j 



