THE CATERPILAR PEST.

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 67, 23 March 1929, Page 8

THE CATERPILAR PEST.

TO THE EDITOXI Sir, —In your report to-cray, of the. caterpillar pest at Cardiff, you state' that "hitherto the pest has not caus. ed' trouble tof any extent Ha the N.orth Island.." This may be because the growing of oats ha s been largely discontinued £n this Island. In, the years 1886-7 audi 8 X before the dairy industry got properly going, oatj growing was carried on. somewhat exteusively in Taranaki, and a good deal of loss was occasioned by the caterpillar. The, writer helped to, thresh a paddock of 120 acres of oate at Manaia about the year 1887.. ii, was an exceptionally heavy crop, but owing to the ravages of the ca,tejN pillars, K was hardly worth putting through the mill. A fanner, Mi" W. Stoddart had leased the paddock for the season at £1 per acre to take a crop of oats off it, and haid? to pay] the owner £IOO for rent before he removed his oats off the ground, and as he was just starting ftwjumg on kin own account, t/lie caterpillars nearly ruined him. The caterpillars only eat the small stem that each oat hangs by, and the grain falls to the ground. As soOn as this crop w.'as threshed, a sheep farmer leased the paddock and skim ploughed it. thus planting the oats that the other man .had lost, this was followed by some showers, and in a few weeks a very profitable crop of green oats" was ready to graze off, one man's loss the other fellow's goocl fortune. I am, etc. A. C. HILL, Cordelia Street, 22-3-29.