NOXIOUS WEEDS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13748, 10 September 1908, Page 5

NOXIOUS WEEDS.

DRASTIC PROPOSALS. CALiFORNIAN THISTLE IN CHAFF. (From Our Parliamentary Reporter ) WELLINGTON, Sept. 9. A brief debate occurred in the House of Representatives this afternoon on the Agricultural Produce Sale and Importation Bill which was returned from the Stock Committee without amendment. The Bill provides penalties for any person who sells or introduces into New Zealand or delivers to any person by way of gift any produce which he ha.s reasonable grounds to believe £ontains the seeds of Californian thistle or is affected with any one of the following I diseases : — Angumois grain moth, Mediterranean flour moth, grain weevil, Indian meal moth and meal snout moth. Mr Witty said that the Bill seemed to ho very drastic in some respects. Maggot in wheat, for instance, was duo to damp and was not a disease in the general acceptation of the term. He himself had at one time held a largo quantity of wheat and had put it in store. When he went to see it a few months later he found it "fairly crawling," and thought it would bb of no value. The millers had cleaned it, however, and it had turned out all right. The Minister said that it had been found recently that chaff containing Californian thistle seed was being sold in the Taranaki district and that there was no power to prevent this. Thoi Agricultural Department had bought up the whole of the infested chaff on the market and had put dealers on their guard. The Department was now aiming at making the Avilful sale of such fodder an offence. Tho importation into the port of Auckland of maize containing disease had rendered necessary the other clauses of the Bill. Mr D. Reid said that no sale of chaff could be held in Otago without the fodder containing some Californian thistle. The farmers could not at pro* I sent keep the thistle in check, and the House should be careful not to cause any hardship.