1 Ava., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 221 
by offering any number of prizes for such collections as have so far been 
exhibited. Nothing can be learnt by collecting and exhibiting those common 
native flowers which grow about Brisbane, and which have practically no value 
for ornament or use, and even the taste for flowers is not cultivated by | 
gathering them. -I would suggest, therefore, that the cultivation of ornamental 
indigenous plants be encouraged by offering prizes for the best exhibits of 
those, whether they be obtained from their native haunts or from gardens. 
The adoption of this suggestion would also help to teach those who care to learn 
which plants are indigenous and which introduced. That a little more know- 
ledge in this direction is desirable will probably be generally admitted, but I 
will refer to one instance which tends to prove that such knowledge is of more 
than passing value. A few years ago some finely carved panels of cedar were 
sent to the mother country for use in the Queensland division in the Imperial 
Institute. My attention was directed tothem by a paragraph in the Courier, 
which stated that they might be seen at the Works Office, and that the plants 
and flowers had been specially selected to illustrate the Queensland indigenous 
flora. When I visited the office I had to ask what botanical authority was 
responsible for the selection. Mr. Bailey was sent for, and it was probably 
quite a surprise to the authorities to learn that sunflowers and other introduced 
garden plants are not indigenous in Queensland. 
A GIGANTIC SUNFLOWER. 
An enormous Russian sunflower has been grown at Manly by Mr. J. A. 
Beal, of the Lands Department. The plant only bore one flower, which was 
14 inches in diameter when cut. It is not often that such large flowers are 
seen, although we believe that in England specimens of Sutton’s giant sunflower 
have attained a diameter of 16 inches, the plants being 10 feet in height. 
IKKEEPING FLIES OUT OF HOUSES. 
A. remarkable method of preventing flies entering a room was many years 
ago communicated by an experimenter, a well-known entomologist, to the 
Transactions of the Entomological Society in London. The open windows 
were covered with a net made of white thread, with meshes an inch or more 
in diameter. Now, there was no physical obstacle whatever to the entrance of 
the flies, every separate mesh being large enough to admit, not only one fly, 
but several, even with expanded wings, to pass through at the same moment ; 
consequently, both as to the free admission of air and of the flies, there was 
practically no greater impediment than if the windows were entirely open, the 
flies being excluded simply from some dread of venturing across the network. 
The only condition is, that the light enter the room on one side only, for .if 
there be a thorough light from an opposite window, the flies will pass through 
the net. It is a remarkable thing that Herodotus (Book IT., chapter 95) 
records that the fishermen in his time protected themselves from mosquitoes, 
when asleep, by covering themselves with their casting-nets, through the 
meshes of which the mosquitoes would not pass. We fear that the Australian 
mosquito would care very little for this kind of mosquito net, seeing that they 
will crawl through a very small hole accidentally made in a curtain. It may 
be, an the case of the flies, that they take the net for a spider’s web, and so 
avoid it. ; 
