FIREBLIGHT MENACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19699, 27 July 1927, Page 12

FIREBLIGHT MENACE.

THE DANGER TO ORCHARDS.

INFECTION FROM HAWTHORN.

REMOVAL OF HEDGES ORDERED

[BY TELEGRAPH. —SPECIAL REPORTER.] WELLINGTON. Tuesday. The problem of the fireblight menace to orchardists was discussed at a meeting this afternoon between the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. O. J. Hawken, and a deputation of farmers from the Manawatu district, who made a protest against being compelled to destroy all hawthorn hedges within a five-miles radius of Palmerston North, on the ground of the great expense and the loss of shelter for their stock involved. Mr. J. A. Nash (Palmerston North) said notices had been served by the Agricultural Department on farmers within a radius of seven miles of the Palmerston North post office, giving them three weeks' notice to eradicate all their hawthorn hedges. This was a very drastic notice, and it was an utter impossibility to comply with it. To do what the department suggested the hedges would have -to be cut down- and the roots grubbed out, otherwise the hawthorn would grow again. The farmers would be affected very seriously. The milking season was just starting, and the dairy farmers required shelter for 'their cows from now on for the next three or four months. Mr. Nash quoted from letters from two farmers, each of whom said he would be faced with a loss of £SOO. One said the cost of eradicating the hawthorn and erecting fences would be £200.' He had a farm of 39 acres,' and if he received no compensation he would have to walk off. Me. Nash said the farmers should be given five years in which to remove the hawthorn and' plant other shelter trees. Mr, J. Linklater (Manawatu) asked if there was any guarantee that the destruction of hawthorn hedges would prevent the - infection of orchards by fireblight. The Minister Hawthorn hedges are undoubtedly carriers of fireblight. Mr. J. A. Campbell, Director of the Horticultural Division of the Department of Agriculture, said hawthorn played a very important part in the spread of fireblight, which was a most serious disease as far as fruitgrowers were concerned. To combat the spread of the disease specific fruit areas had been proclaimed covering the present orchards and the future development of commercial fruit-growing. Outside those areas farmers were permitted to grow hawthorn, but inside them it must bo destroyed when required. Mr. Campbell said fireblight was spreading all' over the North Island. The proclaimed fruit areas were large enough to meet the Dominion's future requirements, and there was no intention to increase them. Once fireblight got into hawthorn hedges it would remain there. In the Auckland district the fruitgrowers had got thd disease out of their orchards as soon as the hawthorn hedges had been removed.

The Minister said hawthorn hedges and orchards could not go together, and eventually farmers would have to get rid of all hawthorn hedges. It was agreed that a conference should be held between officers of the Agricultural Department, the farmers and the fruitgrowers in the" Palmerston North district.