BARBERRY HEDGES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19365, 1 July 1937, Page 6

BARBERRY HEDGES

NOXIOUS WEED PROPOSAL MINISTER'S ASSURANCE (Special to tlio Herald.) TOLAGA Bay, this day. A protest against a proposal made recently that barberry should be declared a noxious wood was made to the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. W. Lee Martin, in Tolaga Bay to-day. The Minister said he was against the proposal unless it was shown it would be in the interests of tiie district. Mr. J. P. Guthrie, chairman of the Tolaga Bay Co-operative Dairy Company, Limited, stated that the declaration of barberry as a noxious weed would have serious consequences-, as settlers had planted many of their hedges in seedless barberry, which was in no way a menace, as it was not liable to spread. The Minister said he regarded barberry as a valuable shelter plant, and he would be very much against its declaration as a noxious week unless it was demonstrated that it was in the interests of the district to do so. Mr. A. H. Cockayne, Director-Gen-eral of Agriculture, explained that the weed was included in the second schedule of the Noxious Weeds Act, and local authorities had power to declare it a noxious weed, providing the Department of Agriculture was agreeable. The local body in that case was the Uawa County Council, and the whole matter was in its hands.