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22 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Juny, 1902. 
three hours per day gathering up and burning or boiling the fallen fruit. Thus, 
taking the loss of fruit and the loss of time together, these represent a big loss caused 
by the flies. It knocks the gilt off the gingerbread, as the saying is, to see the fruit 
of one’s industry destroyed by asia little insects, and to have to stand by 
powerless to prevent them in their work of destruction. A man may remark that he 
owns all the fruit in the orchard, but the fly, if it could speak, no doubt would 
reply—“ Mr. Pricklethorn, as soon as I have had all I want, you can have the 
remainder.” The fly certainly tas possession, and makes the most of it. It is no 
believer in the eight-hour system; it simply works during the whole twenty-four 
hours, and keeps on until it dies. I am afraid agreat many of us fruitgrowers are a 
good deal to blame for the fly trouble having assumed such large proportions as it has. 
A great many of us actually cultivate fruit flies by allowing our fallen fruit to remain 
on the ground and rot there. each orange thus being a nice nest for producing flies, 
J daresay each orange would contain from twenty to forty maggots ; so it can be easily 
seen that, if we let the fallen oranges of several acres lie and rot, we raise an immense 
crop of flies and bitter anguish for ourselves. Common sense ought to tell us our duty 
to ourselves and to others. We cannot plead ignorance. We have been told over 
and over again by Mr. Benson and others to destroy by burning or boiling our fallen 
fruit, to destroy all useless fruit trees that have gone wild about the farm, such as 
uavas, peach-trees, &c.; but we take no heed—we let everything go on in the happy- 
on’t-care kind of style until the flies set to work, and ion we use language more 
strong than polite. If we neglect what is our simple duty, can we wonder at the flies 
taking possession of our orchards like an unpaid mortgagee? Certainly not. I 
think myself that the fly trouble conld be reduced to eine dimensions if all growers 
mould eu, one great point—the cardinal point; and that is, be clean in the 
orchard. 
We know how to destroy the maggot, but we should like also. some remedy to 
destroy or check in some way the fly itself. I have read of several remedies to 
combat or circumvent the flies, but none of them seemed to me to be of much use. 
One remedy was to cover the trees with mosquito net. Now, fancy covering 400 
trees, each 16 feet high by 30 feet in circumference, with net, besides the trouble of 
getting the netting over the trees, tearing it, &c. The cost of the netting would 
about equal that of the crop. 
The next remedy is to cover each orange with a piece of cloth. Just so. Kindly 
imagine one of us going out to tackle a tree with 2,000 oranges with a big bundle of 
rag and a ball of twine, twisting among the limbs, wriggling past the thorns! It 
would be lively and very painfully interesting, especially if we came across a 
hornet’s nest in our travels. No doubt the flies would get a surprise, and wonder 
what had changed the skin of the orange, voting the whole thing a fraud. J don’t 
think the rag dodge will do. It might work on a peach or plum tree, but is 
unworkable in an orange orchard. Then comes the great American remedy. All 
you require is two boards, each 2 inches square by half-an-inch thick. You then go 
and catch a fly, place it on one board, and squash it with the other. <A truly sure 
remedy for that one fly. You would know that fly was dead for certain. 
I have never come across a remedy yet that suggested itself to my mind as being 
of any practical use in killing flies until I reasoned one day that if tangletoe or 
tanglefoot placed on paper will catch house flies, why should not tangletoe placed 
on an orange catch fruit flies? The result was that I tangletoed several ripe oranges 
one evening, and placed them about the trees where the flies were most numerous, 
with splendid results. I set the traps in the evening, and next morning all 
my traps had fruit flies sticking to them.. On one I had.no less than fourteen flies 
for one night’s.work. The flies do not seem to notice the difference between a 
tangletoed orange and one not tangletoed. I have frequently seen them fly on to the 
traps in the daytime. The one great beauty of the trap is that when the fly goes to 
try that orange, it stops there. . The remedy is simple; it is cheap; and what is more, 
it is sure to kill all that.it catches, and I strongly recommend all my fellow fruit- 
growers who should be afflicted with the fly to try it; but remember one thing—Use 
only the ripest and yellowest orange for the traps. The fly won’t go to a green 
orange if a yellow.one can be got. The best oranges to use are those that have 
already been pierced by the fly. . Not only will tangletoed oranges catch flies, but 
it will also catch moths. I have often caught moths both large and small. I fully 
believe that if every grower of fruit in this country were to simply do his duty, and 
see that every fallen fruit was picked up and destroyed, and by using eyery endeavour 
to kill the flies by some good remedy, such as tangletoe, the fly pest would be so 
reduced that their depredations would be very lightly felt. The fly question is a big 
one, and along with that other great pest—the scales—is going. to cause us fruit- 
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