432 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Dec., 1897. 
every diseased fruit and plant, and also in avoiding growing tomatoes for two 
years in succession on the same ground. it is surmised that the microbes, 
producing in the fall the decay of the vine, leave in the soil germs which are 
likely to affect a subsequent crop. In the West those fungoid diseases 
seldom cause trouble to the careful grower. Our great enemy there is the 
Attila of the tomato, the fearful cut worm, a most nefarious insect which 
cuts the stem just level with the ground, a few days after transplanting. The 
only way I know of to put a check to its depredations, is to make iron or card- 
board hoops 3 inches wide and say 8 or 9 inches in diameter, to dip them in 
tar, put them round each plant, and press them for an inch into the ground, 
leaving 2 inches over ground. The pungent smell seems to act as a deterrent 
to the pest. 
Notwithstanding the above drawbacks, few crops are so profitable and go 
pleasant to grow as the tomato. When the land has been prepared, the 
remaining work can be nearly all done by the weaker members of the family of 
either sex, who take pleasure and pride in it. To the new settler, it promises 
an abundant crop within four months after sowing. Let us hope that the time 
is not far distant when, in every agricultural centre, there will be not only a 
co-operative store, but co-operative jam factories and evaporators. Then there 
will be hardly any farm in Queensland without at least a few acres of the 
‘luscious tomato. 
