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the Minister as the head of the Department of Agriculture, which 

 he thought was the leading department of the State. They all 

 recognised that it was to mother Earth that they must look for a 

 return of the prosperity they had lost for the present. He 

 had heard with pleasure some of the gentlemen give their views 

 on insect pests. Most of the gentlemen who had spoken agreed 

 that we must have legislation to deal with the insect pests. He 

 thought the best plan would be for the meeting to go through the 

 Bill, and for the delegates to suggest any amendments they might 

 think desirable. If that were done he'thought it would fortify 

 the Minister and the members of the House when the Bill was 

 again introduced next session. Mr. Bertuch (who read the first 

 paper) said some portions of the Bill were very drastic. He could 

 inform him that the last Bill was not half so drastic as similar 

 measures which were in force in the other colonies. In New 

 Zealand, in Tasmania, and South Australia, they had measures 

 dealing with insect pests. In Tasmania it was restricted only to 

 the codlin moth Bill, but in New Zealand and South Australia 

 they had Bills dealing with various other insect pests. Mr. Ber- 

 tuch recommended that diseased trees should not be destroyed. 

 It was not the intention, of the Bill that they should be destroyed. 

 It was left to the Minister to deal with them as he thought 

 fit, especially with trees, plants, or vegetables introduced 

 into Victoria, that those might be fumigated or otherwise dealt 

 with. He also recommended local boards. That was the inten- 

 tion of the Bill, and inspectors. The question in the House was 

 whether the State should be called upon to pay for that inspection. 

 They were aware there was something similar in regard to the 

 phylloxera disease. The colony had spent something like £40,000 

 in the eradication of that in the G-eelong district, but they did not 

 want to take any such stringent measures as that. Mr. Bertuch 

 referred to the fact that woolly aphis was not mentioned in the 

 Bill. He (Mr. Harris) did not think it necessary. The Bill 

 introduced by Mr. Bell some two or three years ago 'included some 

 22 various insect pests. All those were submitted to the Board 

 of Horticulture, who, in their wisdom thought it not necessary to 

 include all those, and they selected four of the most destrucuve— 

 the codlin moth, the pear slug, the lemon scale, and the orange 

 scale. But he found that other members of the House found that 

 even those four were far too many. He believed the Bill would 

 have been carried had it been confined to the codlin moth alone, 

 which was the most disastrous thing they had to deal with. Mr. 

 Shaw spoke about locusts. He thought they need not deal with 

 them. Their business here was as horticulturists. They were 

 dealing not only with diseases, but also with other matters con- 

 nected with fruit — the export and transit of fruit by sea and land. 



