1 Mar., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 191. 
perilously subject to invasion from these sources. On the part of the trading 
and consuming public, some considerable ambiguity exists with regard to the 
operation and intention of the Diseases in Plants Act of Queensland. The 
enforcement of the regulations in the detention of imported fruits, resulting in 
some cases in their destruction or reshipment, is often cited as an act of 
retaliation for similar treatment meted out to our fruits elsewhere. Having 
considerable experience of the methods of inspection adopted in our own and 
in the sister colonies, I wish to emphasise, as far as my observation goes, 
allowing for a greater stringency in dealing with diseases not yet established in 
the country, the fact that the inspection of fruit is carried out solely with the 
view of protecting the fruit-growers concerned. No doubt at the inception of 
the system of fruit inspection some of the colonies, with an ardour born of 
excessive zeal, were too strict in their attention to duty; hence some wrongs 
may have been inflicted on traders and growers alike. 
Now, however, as the result of experience and wiser counsels, anomalies 
such as were formerly frequent are exceptional. It can never be expected 
that, in following out the course of action laid down by legal statute or by 
departmental regulation, the inspector’s action can be always in accordance 
with rigid rules, for such practice would tend to materially interfere with the 
trading facilities of agents and growers alike. Hence, as a natural sequence, 
that useful and undefined quality of expediency must come in, without which 
few Acts of Parliament could be administered satisfactorily. 
Tt is but reasonable that the traders, growers, and the consuming public 
should be put in possession of the results of our efforts to protect the diverse 
interests concerned. The most antagonistic trader will voluntarily admit that, 
as far as Queensland imports are concerned, the standard quality of fruit has » 
been much improved owing to the restrictions imposed; and although the 
different classes of fruit are not by any means evenly graded as regards quality, 
there is now an almost entire absence of that low grade of fruit which was 
difficult to dispose of, either by the wholesale or retail trader, and exerted an 
injurious influence on the prices of fruit of a superior grade. There is no 
doubt that the regulations, although net contemplated to cover this portion of 
the trade, have done an immense amount of good in all directions. What 
would our fate be should we at any time revert to the free introduction of 
fruit, with its disastrous effects on public health, trade, and on horticultural 
pursuits, by permitting Queensland to become once more the dumping ground 
for the diseased products of America Asia, Europe, and the neighbouring © 
colonies ? 
The law as to fruit inspection, then, has, as its prime motive, the protection 
of our local fruit-growers from further contamination from outside sources, 
and also, as far as lies in our power, the prevention of the dissemination of 
diseases through the ordinary channels of trade by the agency of our own producers. 
For this purpose then we, as far as our very limited staff will permit, inspect 
and condemn diseased fruits arriving from our Northern ports by sea and from 
inland by rail. It is sometimes argued, and with some force, that this pro- 
cedure with regard to local fruits is not consistent with the intentions of the 
Act; nevertheless, experience has amply justified this course, as no more effective 
check can be put on a careless grower than to embarrass him in the marketing 
of diseased fruit when he has the temerity to run the gauntlet of inspection. 
We thus get at a grower who is difficult to discover, except by the very 
expensive and slow method of a comprehensive orchard inspection. 
The interdiction of fruits that convey such formidable enemies to the 
orchardist as the San José Seale, which has appeared on imported apples 
from California, and now is found of some types of apples sent from 
New South Wales, have been amply justified. Once established, there 1s 
scarcely a more insidious pest to combat than this particular scale insect, 
which has proved so formidable in certain States of America that every new 
outbreak is the cause of much alarm and energetic legislative action to secure 
its eradication. 
