TO OVERCOME DROUGHTS. 5 
hold their annual congresses; and, sometimes in one other of the 
centrally situated and accessible country towns, as may be decided. In 
this way, atiention would periodically be focused on the handbook, 
and on the subject with which it has to do. Discussion thereon 
would be promoted. If taken up and entered into enthusiastically, the 
subject of drought-problems should become a live subject, as it ought 
to be, and as it needs to be; and then we may expect to make some 
progress. 
Next only to the need of righteousness, and of the maintenance of 
the integrity and welfare of the Empire, the question of how to cope 
successfully with droughts in Australia stands second to none in its 
importance. For Australia’s bid for greatness rests upon th's, in- 
asmuch as her agriculture and other possibilities can only be imper- 
fectly realized without it. 
Investigations carried out by the United States Bureau of 
Entomology into the parasitism of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly in 
Hawaii indicate the consistent ascendancy of parasites over the host — 
larve. Tor the year 1918 it was found that the total parasitism of 
all the fruit-fly larvee under observation amounted to 55.8 per cent. 
Thus the value of the parasites had consistently increased each year 
since their introduction, conferring benefit upon the people of Hawaii 
by greatly decreasing the infestation of those fruits which are less 
susceptible to fruit-fly attack, and which include the majority of fruits 
of commercial value, and upon the fruit-growers of the United States 
by greatly decreasing the danger of introducing fruit flies into that 
eountry. 
RS 
iS Dr 
Sera 
I 
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li 
til 
‘Nil 
