SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
For the present I have endeavoured to prepare the way for a more 
complete census, and to bring before those interested some idea of the 
great losses that take place annually in Australia through the destruc- 
tive agency of plant diseases, excluding those caused by insects. which 
are no doubt equally as destructive. es 
As the American estimate averages 124 per cent., it is considered 
that 15 per cent. for Australia is a conservative estimate, as in such 
subjects as seed selection and seed treatment, the general use of ferti- 
lizers, spraying, dusting, and soil fumigation, and other methods of 
disease control, breeding for disease resistance, and the rapid transport 
of fruit, with the use of refrigeration, are more generally practised there 
than in Australia, and these must tend to reduce the annual losses. 
With the addition, then, of farm crops (e.g., lucerne, pumpkins, pea- 
nuts, cotton, flax, &.) and vegetables (beans, peas, cabbage, cauliflowers, 
beet), we are justified in assuming £40,000,000 to be the net yield, after 
allowing for 15 per cent. as the average annual loss. Therefore, the 
gross yield is £47,000,000, and the loss (15 per cent.) on this is 
£7,000,000. 
As the scheme is only an estimate, the method of deducting the per- 
centage of loss from the individual yields given in the Commonwealth 
Year-Book has been adopted, though this is not strictly accurate, as 
shown above for the total yield. The statistician’s figures are undoubt- 
edly net yields and values, so that in the case of potatoes, ¢.g., 347,000 
tons, this represents only four-fifths of the gross total, which then 
becomes 434,000 tons, and 20 per cent. loss on this would be 86,800 tons, 
valued at over £400,000. 
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