NOXIOUS WEEDS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8477, 8 May 1893, Page 6

NOXIOUS WEEDS.

TO THE EDITOR OP THB PRE 33.

Si Rj —From time to tima this subject receives attention. Farmers are warned against allowing them to spread ; railway authorities are blamed tor depositing foreign ballast here anil there. All this time we are calmly allowing men to distribute broadcast seeds of the most noxious weed I am acquainted with. In my neighbourhood I think I may say that at least titty tons of clover seed has been harvesied olf laud infested with the Californium thistle. Now, what does this mean '( Split up into parcels of two hundredweight this seed will pollute five hundred farms, or at the rate of six pounds to the acre, say 19,000 acres; Und infested with Californian thistle cannot be cleared for -65 per acre, but put it at that, and say £103,000 for the year's crop only. Why then bother about railway ballast ? Why not pay men to sow weeds broadcast, ani have done with it!

When we fiud that men do not hesitate to sell ssed which they know to be infected; when they are too Jazy—in other words, too greedy—to cut the thistles when in flower ; when they deliberately sell what they know to be ruiuous to the purchaser; when they sell this on the implied understanding that it is pure and good; it seems to mc that they should be brought under the provisions of some law relating to swindling, obtaining money under falde pretences, or something of the kind that will land them in gaol. To appeal to their sense of moral rectitude is all nonsense, because they have noue.—Yours,. &c., Northern* Farmer.