4: TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Weevils.— Weevils loomed very large in the scientific 

 mind, and certainly in one country they became a very real 

 and big problem, but except as regards Australia I cannot 

 say that they ever gave us any real trouble even in such cases 

 as those where we, or the Royal Commission, had kept stores 

 of wheat against possible serious submarine trouble. I will 

 return later to the Australian problem. 



Mites. — The little beast that did give us some trouble 

 was the mite. The mite was previously well known to the 

 grain merchant but had never been regarded as a cause for 

 worry. A mitey condition in fact was generally looked upon 

 as rather a help in selling the wheat : a good judge of wheat 

 told me years ago, " never be afraid of mitey wheat, it only 

 shows how good and rich it is." But the War modified even 

 this view. The Canadian crop of wheat of 1915 which was 

 one of the finest ever gathered in that country was a good deal 

 more subject to this pest than we altogether appreciated. 

 The weather had been absolutely perfect during the growing 

 and gathering of this particular crop, the berry was more than 

 usually big and well filled, the wheat was indeed too rich for 

 keeping purposes. Farmers and others often abuse cold and 

 wet and stormy weather, but the fact is that wheat, like man, 

 is strengthened by adversity, and is in fact " made strong and 

 brave by perpetual pain, and a life-long struggle with wind 

 and rain." I won't say that the 1915 Manitoba crop was 

 unable to resist the mite ; I would rather put it in the other 

 way, the mite was unable to resist the deliriously sweet and 

 well-filled berry. But it must not be imagined that the 

 mite eats the wheat up rapidly ; it is not for what it eats that 

 it becomes a nuisance, but its presence, when in large numbers, 

 is stimulated by climatic conditions, specially warm muggy 

 weather, generates heat, and when the wheat gets above a 

 very moderate temperature it very quickly gets out of condition, 

 has to be turned and blown and taken journeys along bands 



