FIREBLIGHT IN CHRISTCHURCH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 February 1931, Page 6

FIREBLIGHT IN CHRISTCHURCH

NO HONORARY INSPECTORS

OFFERING “The fruitgrowers volunteered on Friday last to help the Agricultural Department and themselves also by acting as honorary inspectors in the Christchurch area for the purpose of locating trees affected by flreblight, but so far not one of them has come in to hack up iiis offer,” stated Mr B. G. Goodwin, orchard instructor to the Agricultural Department, to a “Press” reporter. “The growers are ready enough to say hard things about the Department, and blame it for inaction, but now, when we have prepared everything in readiness to take advantage of their offer, they have not been ready to get on with the job. “The offer was made on Friday, when a number of growers met to discuss the fireblight question,” continued Mr Goodwin. “The plan was that an inspection should be made of what we call ‘backyard’ orchards in the City and suburbs, wherever an owner had any trees at all, of hawthorn, apples, or pears, and so on. I was asked when I could have the area mapped out for them, and I fixed Tuesday morning. On that day everything was ready, including the permits necessary to enable them to act as honorary inspectors, and the secretary of their organisation was notified. Ro far not one man has been in to obtain his permit or to find out what area he is to cover.

“The permits and the other information are being pent out now to the individual growers, but if they had been really active in their own interest, as they appeared to be a week ago, this delay should not have been necessary. The known affected trees, which were not previously removed because it was felt that the growers should have an opportunity of observing the disease, have now been grubbed out and destroyed at the instigation of the Department.”