1 Ava., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 137 
the idea that grubs affect scrub land more than forest, I may say that I am 
absolutely opposed to it. The grub originates in the blady grass country—i.e., 
the forest country. If you break up a piece of virgin, blady, grass country, 
you will find the grubs very numerous; and the reason that they have been so 
bad with us on estates that are composed of a larger area of scrub than forest 
land is that the beetle is especially fond of certain trees that grow on scrub 
land. The female beetle will not travel very far; but the higher the tree she is 
on when she propagates her species, the further she can travel; and when we 
have fields surrounded by scrub badly affected b grubs, the reason is that 
beetles congregate on the serub timber in preterence to the forest. It 
is pandly necessary here to enumerate the timbers the beetle is most 
b 
fond of; and in the second year, when I was engaged on_ this 
business, I had 18 miles of headlands, &e., thoroughly cleaned of what we 
called the beetle-bushes—that is, the timber which | had found the previous 
yeartthe beetles to be the most partial to. It had, however, not the slightest 
effect. My opinion is that if you cannot give them, say, the parrot-bush, they 
will take to the fig-tree or forest ash or anything else they can get. I think, 
however, that with attention and eombination we ean keep the grub in hand. 
The initiation of the combining of the various bodies in the colony to get this 
pest under, arose from a Conference that was held in Mackay in 1896, at which 
there were delegates from the various parts of the colony, who came to discuss 
the matter, and the final result was that we managed to obtain from the 
Agricultural Department an endowment on voluntary subscriptions. I think I 
may claim, without any egotism, that the idea of voluntary subscriptions 
originated with myself, and I hope and trust to the great profit of the whole of 
the canegrowers of the colony. The reason I brought the matter forward was 
this :—In 1894 Paget Brothers spent some £400 in clearing the beetles 
from Nindaroo, and my firm was quite prepared to continue this if other people 
did their share of the same work. ‘To the windward side of us there were large 
areas of land that had been under cane, but which had gone out of cultivation, 
and on these lands had grown very large quantities of timber of the kind 
particularly affected by beetles. Our canefields still suffered, and so, after 
getting rid of 4 tons of beetles in 1894, and seeing in 1895 thousands of tons of 
cane ruined after all our efforts, I concluded it would be advisable to get our 
neighbours to co-operate with us in reducing the pest. ‘The result was that, 
towards the latter end of that year, I started the system of voluntary 
contributions from the farmers who supplied Nindaroo with cane for the 
purpose of destroying the grubs on the vacant lands. Then my firm subsidised 
the farmers’ subscriptions £1 for £1. I then approached the adjoining 
landowners. ‘They subscribed, and I am also happy to say the business people 
of Mackay, who are not canegrowers, also subscribed to the fund, with the result 
that in the beginning of 1896 we had £200 in cash to spend on these vacant 
lands adjoining the canefields. Of course this did not go very far, but still it 
helped. At the Conference I have already mentioned, I suggested that 
legislation be brought in to deal with the matter, but, although this idea fell 
through, the system of voluntary subscriptions was established, and on these 
we have received Government endowments ever since. 1 generally call a 
meeting of farmers about October or November to discuss the coming campaign. 
At Nindaroo, the farmers have always subscribed 1s. 6d. per acre, not on the 
acreage under eane, but on the area they are under agreement for. If 
a man is under agreement for 60 acres, and he has only 40 under cane, 
he pays on the 6U—namely, £4 10s. At the Nindaroo centre, we have 
had to tackle the pest on an area of uncultivated lands extending 
for 8 miles. north and south, east and west; and we have tackled it 
so successfully that in five years, in one set of canefields, we have 
reduced the destruction of cane from many thousands of tons of cane per annum 
to practically nothing, and we haye reduced the catch of beetles from 8,000 Ib. 
to 800 lb. 
K 
