THE AGRICULTURAL CONFERENCE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 147, 26 June 1902, Page 3

THE AGRICULTURAL CONFERENCE.

Press Association. Electric Telegraph

Mafar-Generals F. W. Kitchener and Sir Hugh M'Calmont have sailed from the Cape for England.

Copyright.

Dunedin, June 25.

A proposal by Mr Buckley that this Conference do not approve of the Government Bill for taxing stallions was rejected by 17 to 7. The following resolutions have been carried: —That; the Government be urged to encourage farmers to erect private grain sheds at country railway stations by charging only the maintenance of the siding and 5 per cent, interest on the cost of siding, such interest charge to include sinking fund; that the Government Veterinary Surgeons be more liberally paid ; that the conference urge the Government to prevent the sale by auction or otherwise of unsound bulls ; that the conference views with alarm the increase of rabbits in certain districts of the colony, and considers that more stringent methods should be employed where rabbits are on the increase; that in the opinion of the conference some of the methods employed in certain parts of the colony are more likely to increase rather than to exterminate rabbits.

Mr J. D. Ritchie, Secretary to the Department of Agriculture, brought up the draft of a Bill providing for the taxing and inspection of stallions, and invited suggestions.

In the evening the question of the sheep tax was discussed, when it was resolved to ask the Government to abolish the tax and establish in its place a stock tax.

A long discussion on the Auctioneers Act Amendment Bill resulted in a motion to adopt the Bill being rejected. It was resolved that the Government be asked to giant a bonus to anyone Inventing or discovering a cheap method of destroying noxious weeds; farther, that the clauses of the Noxious Weeds Act be more rigorously enforced.