92 AUSTRALIAN SUGAR-CANE BEETLES AND THEIR ALLIES. 



comparatively few beetles were eauglit. Of the total of 170 beetles^ 

 caught on three successive nights, 131 were males, which certainly does 

 not commend the utility of this method of coping with the pest. 



(4) The removal of feeding-trees ha,s been recognised for many 

 years as a most practical means of getting rid of the lieetle trouble. 

 Mr. Tryon (19) was among the first to recommend this means of 

 combating cane-beetles. The history of the pest in Queensland goes to 

 show that depredations usually cease after the timber is cleared away. 

 Mr. William Beal (28) remarked at the Agricultural Conference at 

 Mackay, in 1899, that in his district (Childers) about 30,000 acres of 

 scrub was felled during the preceding ten or twelve years, with a 

 considerable decrease in the pest. Mr. W. T. Paget (29), too, at the 

 same meeting said that many of the principal feeding-trees had also been 

 removed in his district (^lackay), but he did not consider that this was 

 responsible for the disappearance of the pest. He reported that they 

 were free of the pest after a fight of, many years. 



]Mr. C. E. Jodrell, discussing control measures for this cane-pest at 

 the Mossman meeting of the A.S.P.A. (63), remarked that he had some 

 experience, seeing that he had been paying into the Grub Fund for 

 twenty-three years. He .said that many of the growers began to think 

 they were on the wrong lines altogether. They had left harbourage for 

 beetles along the fringes of creeks, and the insects nourished : but 

 wherever these had been cleared a very material diminution of the pest 

 resulted. If the £20,000 spent in grub and beetle collection had l)een 

 put into brushing the banks of creeks and felling scrub, they would have 

 dealt with the grub long ago, and the value of the country would have 

 been improved by the clearing. He continued that the C.S.R. Co. some 

 years ago employed a number of men at this work on the Johnstone 

 River, and since that time neither he nor his neighbours had had a 

 stool of cane attacked by the grub. Prior to that period there had 

 been years when the crops were eaten down ; since dealing with the 

 harbourage for the beetles, and cutting it well back, they had had no 

 trouble. He said it seemed to him foolishness to seek to do away with 

 the beetles by collecting them, whilst they were allowed to breed in 

 millions in suitable refuge all around. 



Trapping the beetles by keeping only a few of their favourite trees 

 has also been repeatedly recommended. Mr. Tryon (19) suggested the 

 planting of the Moreton Bay hg-tree (Ficus macropJnjUa) near farm 

 homesteads, where the beetles could easily be shaken off and collected. 

 He further urged that this would prove of especial value when the 

 grub-pest had been reduced to small proportions, thus affording an easy 

 opportunity for keeping its ravages within comparatively harinless 

 limits. 



I think it is now generally recognised, among growers in districts 

 where the grubs are troublesome, that it is a wise procedure to have a 

 number of the choice feeding-trees in the yard where the beetles may 

 be shaken off daily for the fowls. Where other feeding-trees have been 

 removed on the farm, it is possible to catch the pest in this way in 

 tremendous numbers. In planting feeding-trees, however, it must be 

 borne in mind that some sorts soon grow so large that it would be 

 impossible to shake the beetles oft" the branches, and hence the purpose 

 would be defeated. 



