TATU DISTRICT NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, 16 January 1933, Page 2

TATU DISTRICT NEWS

GENERAL AND PERSONAL ITEMS. CONDITION OF TOURISTS’ ROADS. Mr. Ruddick has returned to Tatu after an absence of three weeks. Mr. Nichols, a guest of Mr. Cornwall, has returned to his home. Numbers of cars passed through Tatu on Wednesday and took the Gorge Road on the way to New Plymouth to welcome Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. Several residents of Tatu were included in the number. ■' . . ' A recent visitor to the district remarked on the absence of ensilage pits in the Tatu valley. Such pits are a feature of most farms in Taranaki, but in this favoured valley grass is so abundant that the need for ensilage is not felt Paddocks where hay was cut are very green, but are excelled by the fine crops of - roots appearing everywhere. Tourists are still taking advantage of the excellent condition of the Taiigarakau Gorge Road. All people travelling on this route should stop on the tops of the high saddles at the western end of the gorge to enjoy the fine views obtainable of Egmont in the west and Ruapehu and Ngaumhoe in the east. A party motoring to Tatu through, the Okau had an unenviable experience on the road where a slip has come down and the road is so narrow that cars have to crawl precariously round the edge. There is a sheer drop at the spot None of the party was anxious to repeat the experience. ; • While discussing Californian thistle with a Tatu settler a successful farmer from the Egmont district said he had greatly weakened two patches of the thistle on his own property by mowing one patch three times during the summer, and by bruising and crushing the second patch three times with a roller. He had observed* the rolling method to be more effective. Although the weed was not entirely eradicated the growth was now- so weak that he thought similar treatment next sunimer should practically eradicate it.