Mire,

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 12809, 17 March 1905, Page 8

Mire,

(From Qut Own Correspondent.) Our school excursion to the breakwater on Monday next promises to be a great success,' probably owing- to the fact that we will be homo again at a demit hour. A Urge suppi/ of toys and fruit .has been procured tor the children. An excellent programme is being prepared for the concert iln the 2'JUh inst. Your article on noxious weeds will please many of your readers up this way. It. is a fact that blackberries "•an s-till be obtained in largo quantities in certain places, and that ragwort st'll advertises its presence to all and sundry. The trouble wifcli the blackberry is, not merely the rapidity with which it. spreads by means of runners, but that birds take such a prominent part in its propagation. If it were the plant itself that one had lo watch, th<'. trouble would be next o nothings- but the bird factor puts a JilTejt.-nt aspect on the matter. It would be little or no exaggeration to say that out here in the country, vhorover there is su log 1 , a tree, ; or ia post on which a bird may perch, there will you find a blackberry' plant, he seed of which has there been dropHid by a bird— principally the minab >r the blackbird. ,[ venture to say that not until every mdivklual black!v>rry plimt in the country in ..o treatd that it cannot bear »«ill the S)la<:kbvrry 'he prevented.' from spreading. Aft or^ that attention ran be Moid to the com plate killing of the ■lant— and it is one «C the i.>ost, difficult things io kill in creation, from what T know of it. The uHernative 'o preventing every plant seeding is UUine overy bird concerned in its spreading. This, also, I look upon as a matter entailing some small difficulty. .