the railway from brisbane reached chinchilla in 1878. the area became well known for its' dairy farming which became the main industry. in the 1920s, the chinchilla area, and more than 24 million hectares of australia had become overgrown with an imported cactus, called prickly pear. in 1925 the australian government imported a moth from argentina, cactoblastis, which ate the prickly pear. the chinchilla experimental station was set up to breed these moths and release them. at one time the station was sending out 14 million moth eggs a day.