45 



particulars as to quarantine there, and to take every precaution 

 as to the introduction of wines. It had been proposed that 

 Kuthergleu should be made the centre of the distribution of 

 phylloxera-resisting vines throughout the colony. On the plan 

 proposed of grafting cuttings and propagating them, he thought 

 it would be far easier to do that at a moist place like Macedon. 

 He thought the Government might, on the viticulture ground at 

 Eutherglen, establish one depot for .the Eutherglen district and 

 Barnawartha, and another at Mount Macedon for all the other 

 districts of the colony, and at each of those they could propagate 

 as many cuttings as they thought requisite. He did not agree- 

 with Mr. De Castella that the introduction of vinea should be left 

 in the hands of private parties ; he thought the Government 

 should introduce all the cuttings and seeds, and when they did so 

 they could send a number to Eutherglen and Macedon. for distri- 

 bution, but once they got into a certain district they should not 

 allow them to be sent to any other district — each district should 

 be isolated from other districts. He thought it should be pro- 

 hibited to use a f]juit case a second time ; it had been proposed at 

 Eutherglen that no more old ones should be imported. He saw 

 no objection to a rate being struck on the vineyards to carry out 

 the work of the new Viticulture Board, provided it was limited 

 to a rate for the purposes of inspection and eradication. It was 

 only right the Government shauld undertake that ; a man whose 

 vineyard was being destroyed could not be expected to root it 

 out. He thought the disease would spread all over the colony, 

 but if due precautions were taken they might get fifteen or twenty 

 years within which to replant their vineyard's. If they did that 

 it would not injure them. When the disease first broke out in 

 Geelong the Government agreed to compensate the wine-growers 

 there, simply because it was thought that a united effort would 

 stamp it out altogether ; it was never contemplated that if the 

 disease went through all the vineyards of the colony the Govern- 

 ment would compensate, and the vine-growers could hardly be 

 asked to compensate amongst themselves. He thought the best 

 thing would be for the Government to limit itself to inspection 

 and eradication, and let each vine-grower take the risk of his 

 vin-eyard being destroyed. He might perhaps get one year's value 

 of his vineyard as compensation, but that was the utmost. He 

 thought there was no analogy between cattle disease, which 

 would be easily stamped out, and phylloxera, which, though 

 stamped out in one district, may in few years break out in an 

 adjoining one. Mr. Grosse had said that none of the present 

 vineyar.d-owners were to blame as to the disease ; that might be 

 true, but some one of them must have got the disease through the 

 winged insect or through cases, and it had spread to the vineyards 

 without the assistance of cuttings.. 



