CLEARING GORSE

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 September 1940, Page 6

CLEARING GORSE

BURNING A FALLACY? Any farmer who burns gorse in an endeavour to clear an infested area from that pest is only looking for trouble, for after the fire the gorse comes up thicker than ever. That is the opinion emphatically expressed by a North Taranaki farmer as the result of years of experience in bringing into profitable production a large area of what was formerly a gorse brake. Gorse seed is not killed by fire but only appears to be fanned with more vigorous action as, covered by a thick coating of ashes from the burnt gorse, it at once germinates and starts to One area of gorse on his own property that was in places growing to a height of 12 feet and so thick that a good deal of it had to be cut with an axe he let remain on the ground and rot after it had been cut. The few gorse plants that came up subsequently he grubbed each year, and after five years he had no more trouble with that area. Another patch of gorse about four feet high covering about four acres he had cut down and then ploughed the land deeply. Although that was ten years ago he had only had about half a dozen gorse plants to contend with since. He cited instances where areas on which the gorse had been burnt in the district were again thickly covered with gorse.