338 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1902. 
early employed, be utilised as food for horses and cattle without detriment to 
the health of these animals. In objecting to ploughing in of the stalks, one is 
influenced by the knowledge of the fact that the insect may exist not 
infrequently upon the roots of the maize, whither it is transported by ants, and 
is.capable of effecting its exit from a subterranean abode. Finally, advantage 
may be taken of the circumstance that maize sown during one month, rather 
than another, is less liable to become the victim of this so-called “ blight,” 
Several carefully prepared black-board drawings, dealing with the insect and its 
anatomy, as well as specimens of the insects referred to, as well as of 
“blighted” maize plants, served to illustrate these remarks. 
Mr. Tryon then proceeded to deal briefly with the sweet potato weevil, 
dwelling especially upon the urgent necessity of resorting to the measures for 
stamping it out set forth in his recent memoir on this pest in the Agricultural 
Journal. 
After the lecturer had, in response to an interrogation, stated that the 
blight had no such prejudical effect upon the seed as would debar its being 
utilised for replanting, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded both him and the 
chairman, and, they having replied, the meeting terminated. 
SUNFLOWER SEED. 
There is a growing demand in England for this class of feeding stuff, if we 
may judge by the following paragraph in the London Agriculture Gazette. 
Queensland is eminently the home of the sunflower, and, given easy rates of 
freight, £10 to £11 per ton should make the production of the seed a paying 
business :-— 
For years small parcels have readily found buyers among the large seed 
factors in London, but we can now chronicle the arrival of a cargo of 300 tons 
of sunflower seed from Odessa, that found a buyer on Saturday, 28th December 
last, at the high price of £11 5s. per ton. The importer demanded at first £12 
per ton, and there were a good many bids made for the cargo ranging from £10 
to £11 per ton, but eventually a large seed firm secured the lot at the price 
given above. This fact only is sufficient to show Smann Farmer that there is 
a market for the seed, and when we take into account the fact that one acre on 
the average will produce 50 bushels of the seed—of course the produce will be 
according to the nature of the soil and mode of cultivation—without exhausting 
the soil to anything like the same extent as other feeding crops, its value as a 
pootaple crop can be at once appreciated. Why it has been so long neglected 
y English farmers it is difficult to say, considering it has been largely and 
profitably cultivated in Germany, Hungary, and Russia. And further its value 
as a plant was so well known two hundred years ago, that in September, 1716, 
Arthur Buyan, sen., took out a patent in this country, No. 408, which states :— 
“How from a certaine English seed might be expressed a good sweet oyle of 
great use to all persons concerned in the woollen manufacture, painters, leather- 
dressers.” This oil “is to be expressed from the seed of flowers commonly 
called and knowne by the name of sunn flower of all sorts, both double and 
single.” Smatn Farmer does not like the idea of growing an acre or more 
without being certain of finding a market for the produce, butit must be borne 
in mind that not only birds of all kinds thrive on the seed, and there is no more 
fattening food for poultry, but that cattle like the seed as a food, either in their 
natural state or crushed and made into cake; while the very stalks may 
be ground up and mixed advantageously with other fodder. The cultivation of 
the plant is extensively conducted in the south-western section of Russia in 
Europe, where the climate resembles that of East Anglia, and the area in that 
country is increasing every year, as the demand is greater than the supply, not- 
