RAGWORT IN WAIKATO

Feilding Star, Volume 9, Issue 3848, 3 October 1932, Page 5

RAGWORT IN WAIKATO

CONCERN OF FARMERS MENAGE FROM INFESTED AREAS (Per Press Association) Hamilton. September "0. The views expressed by Mr Dynes Fulton, chairman of directors of llie New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Co., concerning the menace of the unchecked spread of ragwort in the Waikato, are also held by Mr T. Hinton, a well known farmer of Eureka. and until recently chairman of the Waikato County Council. •■The problem is a most serious one and the longer measures to combat it: are delayed the worse the position will he." said Mr Hinton. "The Waikato being an areali in the main, of intensive cultivation, ragwort is not such a serious pest as in some of the surrounding districts. It is therefore the business of the individual farmer to see that his property is kept clean. The worst feature is that seeds are carried from affected areas to the land of farmers who made an honest attempt to keep their (Mistures clean. I.and owners should l>e forced to eradicate the weed for this reason, even if it, was the matter of only a few heads on a whole farm.”

An illustration of the menace of a ragwort infested area to neighbouring farm lauds is afforded by the experience of a farmer near Hamilton. At: lhe end of his property, away from the ragwort area there is no ragwort to Ite seen, hut the plants grow thicker and thicker as the other end of the farm is approached. In this ease- the prevailing wind is resjtonsible for 'the spread of the seed.