Wheat (1) - Part 3

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and quick despatch, well, the thing cannot be one with Government officers in control. Even Mr. Keys, if he spoke the truth, would tell you that he is up against Treasury regulations and all sorts of red-tape which he finds irksome. It suits him to urge that the Government should take over the whole of the control of the wheat. You are an old Minister of the Crown and you know the difficulty of getting things done with despatch in a Government department. I have seen the methods of book-keeping, and although they may be necessary from a Government point of view, in dealing with any commercial commodity they become an impossibility. You cannot stand up against private enterprise.

5381. Under the Scheme I have mentioned, the Government have no say at all with the exception of sending the order and to see that they are protected. The Scheme is worked by co-operative societies; the Government find the money for the erection of the elevators with the exception of 15 per cent.?—That can be done here.

5382. The reason I mention this is because it appeals to me?—As farmers, it is not a question of coming on the Government. We are branded in the State as supplicants for Government assistance and that is not a position for anyone with self-respect. We want to get on to our feet and remain there.

5383. Is it probable for co-operative farmers to enter into anything similar to that in Alberta ?—You must remember that you have to read the history of wheat growing in Canada to know what you are up against. When Laurier was President, the farmers went 800 strong Ottawa to make their demands. It is a peculiar thing to say, but wheat growing does not pay in any part of the world.

5384. You think it is possible that they might form something similar to what is done in Canada, finding the 15 per cent. and the balance being lent by the State?—There is no doubt about it whatever. I think if the Westralian farmers had a proposition like that placed before it to-morrow, they would put up the 15 per cent. at once.

(The witness retired.)

LESLIE JOHN WILLIAM NEWMAN, Government Entomologist, sworn and examined:

5385. By the CHAIRMAN: I believe that for some time you have had under consideration the effect of the weevil on our grain ?—Yes.

5386. Can you give the Commission some information in regard to your researches?—We have first of all to disabuse our minds of the common error which is prevalent among all classes of people that the weevil is of spontaneous generation. That is a physical impossibility. You must have the parent weevil before you can have the egg or the larvae. It is a very difficult thing indeed to convince people that weevil is not spontaneous. The opinion seems to be held that the storage of grain must be inevitably followed by the appearance of weevil. That is erroneous. Grain if stored under conditions suitable for the storage of grain can be maintained clean. We understand and realise the present conditions under which grain has had to be stored in Australia are abnormal. We have had no previous experience of the storage of grain for any lengthy period. Most of our grain until recently has been from the time it is reaped until exported, got away quickly, only 9 or 10 months elapsing. Under these conditions it was not necessary to study the ravages of weevil, only those connected with the mills. Now we have millions of bushels that had to be hurriedly stored without previous knowledge of storing, and there has been loss accrued. The term "weevil" is a very broad name one, from my point of view, as an entomologist. It only refers to those snouted beetles. We find when we come to the trade form of beetle, it is not confined to that family, but towards any insect that is found in stored grain. For instance, we have the following insects in the wheat stacks at Fremantle:—the rice weevil (Valandra orzyal)—I am giving them in the order in which they are most destructive—the lesser grain borer (Rhizopertha dominica); Mill floss (Tribolium ferrugineum); the grain weevil (Calandra granaria); the saw-tooth grain beetle (Silvanus surinamensis); the Mill worm (Tenebrio molitor); the Tobacco beetle (Lacioderma serriocorne), the small Grain moth (Sitoroga cerealella), the Common Flour moth (Asopia farinalis); the Cadella (Trogosita mauritanica); the Mediterranean mill moth (Ephistia kuhniella); the Indian mill moth (Plodia interpunetella). That includes 12 of the principal insects found in the stacks of grain at Fremantle, and to the average man they are all called weevil, but, strictly speaking, the rice weevil and the grain weevil are the only two weevils in the lot.

5387. Do the others destroy the grain as well?—Yes. You cut out the rice weevil, the lesser grain borer, and the small grain moth, and you have the three principal insects causing the damage to the grain at the present time. The other insects are more or less camp followers of those three I have just mentioned. They do not cause the primary or first damage as the three mentioned, but in their turn have to be counted in the common loss that accrues. You will understand that my work is considerably limited in Perth. Being a single-handed man, with no assistance, I have not been able to take on the complete study of the life history of all these insects under local conditions. For the first reason I have selected what was to us the primary pest of the State, the fruit fly, which took me three years to work out. That has kept the whole of my time, other than the general routine work in the entomological office, so that the figures I have here are only rough in a sense; they are not conclusive at all and cannot be taken as the final word as to what may be said on the rice weevil or grain borer or grain moth. The eggs of the weevil, the rice weevil, which is the weevil causing so much damage in Victoria, and is the primary cause of the damage there; in our case the rice weevil belongs more to tropical countries. The eggs of the weevil are laid in or upon the grain. The egg hatches in from two to four days if the conditions be favourable, but if they be not favourable the hatching may be delayed for several weeks. The larvae is legless and has no means of propulsion. It has to live inside the grain. If the grain be split open and the larvae fall out, unless it is nearly full grown it must perish. It lives on the starchy contents of the grain and the forms its pupa within the grain. The larval period, in a normal summer, occupies from 15 to 19 days, and in winter perhaps from three to four months. The pupa period is in summer from six to nine days, and that is spent inside the grain. In winter the pupa will hybernate. After these three stages, the egg, the larvae, and the pupa, we have the imago, or adult. This cuts its way out of the grain. The beetle is capable of living many months and of laying eggs over a considerable period. The eggs may be laid in various batches. Taking the life cycle you have in summer a minimum of from 23 to 32 days, and in winter the extended period in the life of the adult, who hybernate. The damage is done probably rather by the adult than by the larva, which is confined to one grain, whereas the adult may move about and eat holes in the grain wherever he happens to come. Rice weevils can operate only where moisture exists in the grain to the extent of a minimum of 9 or 10 per cent. Wheat taken from the field averages only from 5 to 8 per cent. of moisture. These figures may be open to correction. I carried out a number of experiments. Taking 34 samples of various types of wheat from the Victoria district, from Nangeenan, and from Narrogin, I had half of them put into bags and half put into screwed top jars. I have kept those samples for 18 months and not one has a single weevil in it. It is a conclusive demonstration that weevil does not exist in our fields. Although the rice weevil is capable of considerable flight, the very fact that the conditions where our wheat ripens are so arid and hot is not conductive to the presence of weevil in our fields. The weevil requires moisture. Quite different conditions obtain when the weevil is found in the maize in New South Wales. There it attacks the maize in the cob, the conditions in the field being altogether favourable to the weevil. Then we have here another beetle, which is discovered on the South Wharf two years ago. It is known as the lesser grain borer, but we know very little about it. The figures I have to give you are taken principally from those supplied by authorities in India, where this insect flourishes. I found it in a stack of wheat on the South Wharf, iden-