Notes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 82, 6 March 1909, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

In Thursday's issue we had an editorial note on "Waituna's Wealth." The great possibilities of the Oliel-tenham-Waituna countryside are emphasised in a special article appearing on our fourth :page to-day. In that article our representative gives a description of things out that way as they impressed him during a visit paid by him to the district this week. Not onlly do his notes make interesting reading, but there is much that is instructive for those who are at all concerned in the development or Feilding's back country. The business men of Feilding are of such, for the j closer settlement of the Waituna means 'that its trade and produce moist come into and through, this town. The valley, as seen by our descriptive writer, presented a charm- j ing sight, and just now would make a perfect pastoral picture for the brush of an artist. Nature 'has eni dowed the Waituna with beauty and productivity, and the settlers who have already carved homes out of the bush, are to be commended for an industry that Jias converted the wild into an area of smiling broad acres and' comfortable homesteads. We are requested by settlers to draw tlie attention of the powers that be to tho growing evil of pennyroyal as a noxious weed. It covers the whole range of our country side, amd the traveller in the train right along to Wanganui cannot hut Be struck with the purple patches that cover the landscape. In some cases whole j paddocks are monopolised by the weed, whioh raises its fragrance and the anger of the settler who wants blades of nutritious grass to grow instead of the pennyroyal that does not yield a penny royalty. We have quite 'recently raised a protest against the prevalence of noxious weeds 'n this district, and are pleased to notice that the Agricultural Department is taking action in this matter. May the action lead to the suppression «f the pennyroyal, the dread seeds of which are easily carried around by sheep, to the destruction of pasture© that previously were clean.