RAGWORT CONTROL

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 47, Issue 2669, 13 September 1937, Page 5

RAGWORT CONTROL

DEPARTMENTAL SCHEME ALLOCATION TO OHINEMURI SUM OF £1560 NOW AVAILABLE. An allocation of £1560 for* ragwort eradication, has been made to the Ohinemuri County Council by the Department of Agriculture, according to advice received by the council at its meeting last week. Control methods would be similar to those carried out last year.

The grant was made subject to the following conditions: (1) The council to organise gangs of men not exceeding the allocation; (2) Men to be selected from the certifying officer’s lists; (3) Rate of pay to be 16s per day, married men to be employed in preference to single men, to be worked in gangs of 10 men, one to be foreman at Is pei' day extra. Days lost through wet weather or sickness would be without pay, otherwise men to work a five-day 40-hour week; (4) County to organise and regulate the work.

Type of Land Available.

This included the provision of tools, materials, transport, etc. The work could be undertaken on abandoned farms, farms of indigent owners, Crown lands, unindividualised native lands and native lands where the owners could not be forced to clear. At the discretion of the council and with the approval of the local Agricultural Department’s officer, work was authorised on ratepayers’ land where some but not all of the cost could be paid by the ratepayer. Any such payment was to be devoted to extended work in the county.

The department would refund wages paid up to 1300 man-days and 50 per cent, for materials and transport. “The county is to decide the programme. of work in consultation with the department’s inspector of stock at Paeroa,” the department continued. “It is expected that the county will mould operations to the satisfaction of the inspector of stock insofar as Crown and unindividualised native lands are concerned, and particularly so that the money to be expended will do all that the county considers reasonable and economical on such lands, as compared with the needs of other types (abandoned farms, indigent owners, etc.) on which work may be undertaken.

More Work Required.

“The work is proceeding steadily,” remarked the chairman, Mr Wm. Marshall, “but we could do with three times the men and three times the money.” In reply to councillors the chairman said particular attention was being paid to properties which were a menace to others. The scheme of subsidising wages of men employed in ragwort eradication by farmers was also in operation.