PAMPAS GRASS.

Southland Times, Issue 25342, 22 July 1935, Page 3

PAMPAS GRASS.

To the Editor.

Sir —As I dealt so fully with the subject of Pampas grass in my previous letter it is hardly necessary for me to reply to “Cutty Grass,” but as he. has endeavoured to draw a red heirmg across the track, I will reply to one or two of the points he has made. I am not confusing Pampas grass with cutty grass or twitch, or Paspalum or Maram grass. I_am speaking of Pampas grass as I know it and have seen it growing on various farms in the North Island and have no hesitation in saying that no sane farmer would plant it out on a farm of good land. This statement has been endorsed by responsible officers of the Department of Agriculture since last I wrote on Pampas grass. “Cutty Grass” states that he has been farming on his property for the past thirty-two years and that he has had Pampas grass growing in his garden for the past thirty years and found that his stock preferred it to English grasses. Then why hasn’t he planted out part or all of his farm with it? Years ago he could have let his fellow farmers know of this valuable fodder; but perhaps he is the gentleman the poet had in mind when he wrote “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness in the desert air.” Notwithstanding “Cutty Grass’s” experience with his garden plot, I venture to say that any farmer planting out Pampas grass will regret it. “Cutty Grass” states that Tie will guarantee to plough it easily and without a stop. I stated that it was financially impossible to plough it out once it became firmly established and various authorities writing to the Press have stated that it is almost impossible to eradicate it. During the time that I was living at Ruawai, North Auckland, I was very familiar with Paspalum grass that is mentioned by “Cutty Grass” and I can tell him that it is a different and more valuable grass, but quite unsuitable for South Island conditions as it requires a dry, hot climate, and would give no grow’th for nine months of the year here. At Ruawai it grows higher than the wire fences during the summer months, is a rough, coarse grass and veryqhard to eradicate. Stock will eat Pampas grass in the dead of winter. They will also eat tussock in the swamps and gorse hedges, but farmers do not plant them for that purpose any more than they plant the poisonous hemlock plant that I see growing unchecked in various parts of the South Island, some of it growing in saleyards that I have visited. I have not been long in the South Island and I feel flattered to think that a grass has been called after me.—l am, etc., J. E. HICKEY. Woodlands, July 19, 1935.