36 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA: 



stocks below ground, it is perfectly safe, so far as the roots 

 are concerned ; so that, with ordinary attention to cultiva- 

 tion and cleanliness, the grower of apples has little to fear 

 from this pest at any rate. The earliest records which I 

 can obtain regarding the advent of the " Woolly Aphis " 

 into Victoria has been supplied to me by my old friend 

 Mr. Adcock, the well-known Geelong nurseryman, who 

 informs me that the " American Blight or Woolly Aphis" 

 was first observed by him on apple trees imported from 

 Tasmania to Geelong in 1849. Mr. T. C. Cole observed it, 

 however, in 1846, and I am not aware of it having been 

 seen earlier than the above dates. 



The introduction of Schizoneura lanigera into England 

 has, it is said, been traced to the year 1789, at which 

 period it seems to have been brought from America to an 

 old nursery in Sloane Lane. How long it is since this 



fest was introduced into New South Wales and Tasmania 

 am not aware. According to the late Mr. Treen, the first 

 systematic experiments with the non-blighting stock, the 

 " Majetin," were carried out by Messrs. T. Lang and Co., 

 the well-known nurserymen of Melbourne and Ballarat, 

 in 1868-70, their attention having been drawn to this 

 apple in 1862, and to the descriptions thereof given by 

 Geo. Lindley in his " Guide to the Orchard." Lindley says 

 that, at the time of the publication of his book, 40 years 

 ago, it was noticed that an old apple tree growing at 

 Norwich in England, w r hich had been grafted three feet 

 high, had been attacked by the " Aphis lanigera " or 

 " American Blight," below the grafted part, but never 

 above it; the limbs and branches continuing perfectly 

 free, although all the other trees in the same garden were 

 infested, more or less, with this blight. The variety was a 

 Norfolk apple named the "Winter Majetin," and the 

 Messrs. Lang and Co. concluded that, if this variety was so 

 very free from blight as described, it should form a valuable 

 stock for the apple, and they accordingly procured some 

 trees from England, and such I understand, and have no 

 reason for doubting, is the history of the introduction of 

 blight-resisting stocks into Victoria. 



