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330 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [L Sepr., 1901. 
THE POSITION OF GINGER. 
For those Northern farmers who plant ginger, there is a hopeful lookout. 
The London ginger trade appears to hinge on the movement of ginger in 
Jamaica. The London Commercial Record says that, had it not been for the 
large supplies of this description, the present position of the market would be 
a totally different one to what itis. Jamaica ginger has been the millstone 
round our neck; its weight and low prices have frightened bull speculators, 
who, having regard to the favourable position of Indian sorts, appear ready to 
take up the article, and good and profitable business would have been the result. 
As it is, the season in India has practically closed for want of supplies, and the 
entire business done on arrival terms will hardly exceed 100 tons—a very poor 
result, indeed, compared with the large quantities which used to be contracted 
for in former years. We had become accustomed to look for some movement 
in ginger every season, but this year business has been confined to the Indian 
dealers and planters, who, it appears, have been operating against one another, 
much to the discomfort of the dealers, who, following a bear tactic, have been 
cornered, and will, no doubt, have to pay the piper for their rashness, unless, 
indeed, the hope expressed in some quarters be realised that some stocks are 
held back by planters with the view of squeezing prices still more. | Whatever 
those stocks may be, they will, we fear, not alter the general conviction that the 
crop has turned out smaller than anticipated, that, in fact, it will be the smallest 
for many years past. It will take about one year before the next new crop 
makes its appearance ; consumers will, therefore, do well to look after their 
stock, for it is not unreasonable to suppose that prices will experience a 
considerable advance, especially if the summer should prove a hot one. 
THE WIREWORM. 
A correspondent of the Agricultural Gazette, London, writes :—More than 
one farmer has declared that a dressing of rape dust is a remedy for wireworm, 
though it is not clear whether it acts by feeding or by disgusting the pest. One 
theory is that the wireworms gorge themselves upon the rape dust to such an 
extent that, “like the fly on the ceiling,” in the old comic song, they “blow 
themselves up by spontaneous combustion.” I sowed a quarter of a ton of rape 
dust upon an acre of land intended for tomatoes, about ten days before planting, 
and in setting the plants my men did not see a wireworm, although there were 
swarms of the grubs in parts of the fieldrecently. There are potatoes adjoining, 
and perhaps the grubs have emigrated to that part of the field; but is there 
any evidence of their moving for any considerable distance? It is too good to 
hope that they have eaten the dust till they burst, or otherwise have been 
poisoned by it; but supposing that they were disgusted by it, and retired to an 
unusual depth in the soil, is it possible that they can have changed into the 
chrysalis stage prematurely P Or, supposing that they ate the rape dust and 
flourished upon it, have they changed to the chrysalis stage on that account? 
Miss Ormerod states that their life in the grub stage varies in length, and that 
it is supposed to be shortened by abundance of food; but quite as probable a 
supposition seems to me to be that their grub life is shortened by starvation. 
The fact should be borne in mind that the apparent success of a remedy may 
be really due to the grub stage of the pests in a particular field or spot having 
‘come to an end. How soon a fresh lot would hatch after the grubs have become 
first pupe and afterwards click-beetles, does not appear to be certain. But 
does not an infected field become free from wireworm by natural means some- 
times? If it does so, the method of clearance is mysterious. Are they starved 
as grubs, or do they fly away as beetles? ‘Truly, there is abundant scope for 
the observation of the wireworm, as well as for testing thoroughly reported 
preventives or remedies in relation to it. 
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