THE TASK AHEAD. 
figures are not so fanciful as they seem.- They convey, even to the 
unimaginative mind, what prickly pear, spreading at a present rate of 
1,000,000 acres a year, may mean. What a task for a brainy entomo- 
logist, or biologist, or chemist! The other day, the Minister for Lands 
in Queensland remarked to the writer that the Government of that 
‘State would willingly give any one a free grant of 1,000,000 acres of 
pear land if only the grantee would guarantee to clear it. What a prize! 
Now, take cattle tick. That pest has caused millions sterling of 
loss to the cattle raisers of this country. It is costing the State Govern- 
ments of New South Wales and Queensland scores of thousands each 
‘year, not to exterminate it, but merely to keep it from making further 
“THE SECRETS OF THE AIR.” 
encroachments. This problem is not peculiar to Australia. The 
Americans are facing it too. They are driving the tick back 
slowly but surely, at great expense, with the aid of an army of officials. 
They dip and quarantine, dip and quarantine, and so on slowly and 
painfully cleaning it up. There may be an easier and a cheaper way, if 
only we can find it. Here is a task for a biologist with a brain. 
Then again, there is the sheep-fly and the nasal-fly, braxy in sheep, 
black disease, contagious abortion in cattle, as well as tuberculosis and 
all the other ills that stock are heir to. These afford ample scope for 
the entomologist, the microbiologist, and the rest. The denizens of 
the north and the- west build their homes on piles, not, as-is the case 
C.12439.—4 289° 
