RAGWORT CONTROL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4560, 15 April 1942, Page 5

RAGWORT CONTROL

IN OTOROHANGA COUNTY THE SEASON’S OPERATIONS At the monthly meeting of the Otorohanga County Council on Monday, the Inspector of Noxious Weeds (Mr Noel Smith) reported as follows : “The two gangs comprising 23 men have been steadily employed cutting, and have now commenced poisoning again. We have about 30 tons of Atlacide and lime (all the sodium being impressed by the Government), and have work laid out to keep the gangs steadily employed until the end of the month, when we have been instructed to close down. “Comparing this season with previous seasons, progress has been made in many instances, hundredweights having been used where tons were necessary. “Material has been conserved as much as possible and the Walters applier proved highly satisfactory, but in other places, owing to shortage of labour on both sides, a very wet spring, where growth was practically nil till close on Christmas, haymaking and shearing all coming on top of one another, the high price and shortage of material, some areas are in a bad state, and only having two gangs instead of four had been unable to put them in before the damage being done. “There has been no opportunity of treating Crown and Native areas on account of shortage of labour and material, consequently some of the dirty areas are still a menace to clean lands. Small farm schemes under the Crown and Native Departments have failed to keep their places clean, and in cases where men should have been working at ragwort they were off harvesting for other people. In other instances every effort was made to control ragwoft with sheep, but even they ‘struck.’ ” Mr Smith verbally added that with the scheme closing down at the end of the month, he desired to know his position as he had been offered another job. After a short discussion, it was decided, in view of the uncertainty of the position in the near future, to advise Mr Smith to accept the job offered him. The chairman (Cr V. W. Simm) said that when in Auckland next week he would interview the officer in charge, a gentleman who had always been sympathetic to the Council’s requests, with a view to getting one gang kept on ragwort during the winter months, when good work in eradication could be accomplished. It was decided to apply to the appropriate authority for a subsidy for one gang during the winter. If granted, the chairman will take action to have the work effectively supervised.