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experience which demands the gravest care and consideration 

 from the State. As to the expediency of abolishing the Board 

 Entirely, I think there will be but little difference of opinion. 

 Both viticulture and horticulture, though usually classed under 

 the head of agriculture, form special branches of rural economy, 

 representing the higher, more scientific, and more remunerative 

 forms of land cultivation, and as such need the supervision and 

 services of the most practical and most advanced minds of men 

 who have made these industries the object of their special care 

 and attention. It is not to be expected that the. Department of 

 Agriculture should be able to concern itself directly with the 

 thousand and one details associated with the wine and fruit 

 growing industries, to understand which would require a more or 

 less technical training. Nor is it advisable or necessary to create 

 a special portfolio for a Minister of Viticulture and Horticulture. , 

 In the past the experience of our Ministers of Agriculture has 

 generally been confined to wool-growing and ordinary farming. 

 It might, however, happen that the Minister of the day were a 

 bigoted teetotaller, under which circumstances the interests of the 

 vine-grower would stand but a poor prospect of receiving the 

 attention they required. In any case it can hardly be expected 

 that a Minister of Agriculture who was not himself a vine- 

 grower should be able to take a deep practical interest in the 

 fortunes of the wine industry, and a merely " official " interest 

 would be of no use. For the above reasons it will, in my 

 opinion, be absolutely necessary to maintain a permanent Board 

 of Viticulture, elected by the vine-growers themselves, whose 

 constitution, powers, and responsibilities shall be defined by 

 Act of Parliament. A Board elected under these conditions 

 would or should be in touch and in complete sympathy with the 

 wants and requirements of the vine-grower, and should be able to 

 devise such remedies or measures as his interests may from time 

 to time require. It might certainly be desirable that the Govern- 

 ment should reserve to itself the right to' appoint one or more 

 representatives of its own as members of the Board, or of any of 

 the special committees which the Board might appoint. There 

 are, I believe, in ithe colony, gentlemen unconnected either with 

 the Department or the Board who are fully qualified to draft a 

 practical working constitution for an elective Board of Viticulture. 

 I am of- opinion that a powerful representative Board, constituted 

 as proposed, would be able to appoint from among its members 

 special committees to deal with the suppression of diseases in 

 our vineyards, or any other questions of importance. Such com- 

 mittees would, I believe, be competent to devise a system of 

 organization applicable to' the whole colony needed to limit the 

 spread of phylloxera, and to stamp out the pest as soon as it 

 made its appearance in a new district, before it had sufficient 



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