MENACE OF RAGWORT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 14

MENACE OF RAGWORT

DESIRE FOR ERADICATION SUGGESTIONS TO CONFERENCE [from our own correspondent] TE AWAMUTU, Friday Ragwort, its menace and possible eradication were discussed for two hours last evening by delegates from the Waipa nnd Otorohanga Counties, Te Awamutu Borough Council, Farmers' Union, Chamber of Commerce, Returned Soldiers' Association and Pukeatua Settlers' Association. The chairman of the Waipa County, Mr. S. C. Macky, presided.

It was decided to support recommendations to the conference to be held in Hamilton on Monday, urging that the Noxious Weeds Act bo amended to prowide for a clearer definition of the words "occupier" and "clear," that the minimum fine be £5 and that under conditions whero ragwort infestation has rendered profitable farming impossible and it is beyond tho financial ability of the owner to deal with the ragwort, control bo taken by tho local authority, which shall have power to place the owner under the Rural Mortgagors' Final Adjustment Act, or similar legislation to bo provided, whether the mortgagee be Crown or private. It was also agreed that it should be an offence for any unauthorised person to light fires on unoccupied land without permission. An instance was quoted where fire cleared hundreds of acres of hill slopes that are now thickly infested with ragwort, which is spreading all over -neighbouring lands that formerly were comparatively clean. Members were practically unanimous that until some parasite was available in sufficient numbers the Government should increase its subsidy to the Cawthron Institute, and that a rating system such as that under tho Rabbit Act, with a Government subsidy of at least four to one. was tho only feasible means of checking the ragwort.