RYE GRASS TITLE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18255, 25 November 1933, Page 4

RYE GRASS TITLE

POVERTY BAY PROTEST EXPERTS STILL IN ERROR A further protest against the submer- r geuee of the old-established title, “Poverty Bay rye-grass,” in a new term which confuses the local product with that of Hawke’s Bay, has been made to the Minister of Agriculture the Gisborne and East Coast Sheep-owners’ Onion, consequent- upon the appearance of an article in the Journal of Agriculture in which the error of the Government grass-lands experts is perpetuated. The protest, was in the following terms: “In the November number of the Journal of Agriculture an article written by Mr. Bruce Levy dealing with herbage plants appears. In this article, in discussing rye-grass strains, the name ‘Hawke’s Bay rye-grass’ is used six times while Poverty Ray is not mentioned. “It is difficult to reconcile this with your statements to us in the correspondence which passed between the .Department of Agriculture and ourselves in June and July last, and it will be apparent to you that our complaints were fully justified. “At that time your department pointed out, quite justly, that the quantities of Poverty Bay certified seed were very small compared with Hawke's Bay, but that consideration can hardly be said to apply after last season’s results. ■‘The use of the name Hawke’s Bay as applied to the best strains of rye-grass seed constitutes a gratuitous advertisement of incalculable value to Hawke’s Ray growers. On this head we would have no complaint to make were it not that the complete suppression of the tiame of our own district places growers in Poverty Bay at a hopeless disavantagp in disposing of their seed. “We would‘ask von to give us a definite assurance one way or the other as to the future attitude of the department, whether the practice of discrimination in favor of our competitors is to be continued or not? Your answer to this query will he anxiously awaited, as tbe matter is of the utmost importance to the district.” 1