RAGWORT MENACE IN AUCKLAND

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21708, 15 February 1936, Page 16

RAGWORT MENACE IN AUCKLAND

GRAVE CONCERN CAUSED GREAT AREA AFFECTED

[THE PRESS sped*! Service.] AUCKLAND,. February 14. The marked increase in the covered by ragwort in the province, and the obvious jj the farmers as a whole to cope wi it, are causing grave concern over a widespread area. Those who. have studied the problem for ? ear ®>- who have agricultural P^P heart, express the view of the weed should be regarded as a national matter, particularly as the spread is mainly taking place from undeveloped or abandoned areas. From many district* come, stonesuf farmers walking off Imjd years of bitter struggle; of vaiuaom stock poisoned; and of of productivity won at considerable expense of toil and money. , “We have been left a legacy of the fruits of continued public apathy, said a prominent agriculturist Jtwm keep busy any. administration, however efficient, for a long.time to come. Now that ragwort is la it is possblie to get some ideft of its prevalence. ,It ,|s practically uljcnown near Auckland and in the north, but once the observer gets into the Waikato and the King Country the weed becomes a characteristic feature of the countryside On the fertile flate through t to the Thames Valley, here and there among some of the finest farmlands in the Dominion, are to be seen the deadly yellow patches, and a vigorous growth of the weed is reported from a number of new 1 areas toward Lake Taupo, as well as m the Bay of Plenty. Throughout a recent tour of ragwortr infested districts, numerous cases of hardship caused by the weed were encountered. In one • case a dairyman had lost 21 out of his herd of ,46 cows, and another 60 cows in the last four years. The first man had spent £3 ah acre on chemical treatment, and was just getting his land under control. Another settler, after 10 years of stern struggle isolated jh a vast area of unoccupied land, had recently for the first time been able to afford to buy sheep to control his better country. Several-farmers actively engaged in actual cutting or dusting indicated great fields of yellow that would inevitably send out their untold millions of seeds to provide more work and expense next season. In another district, a fanner pointed out from a hilltop distant patches beautiful enough is ibe evening 'light,; but each representing a soldier settler who had failed.