RAGWORT ERADICATION

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3305, 4 June 1931, Page 5

RAGWORT ERADICATION

UNDER UNEMPLOYMENT SCHEME. AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT’S VIEWS. Some time ago a meeting of representatives of local and public bodies, convened at the instance of the local Chamber of Commerce and the Farmers’ Union, made representations to the Government and the Unemployment Board with a view to taking more active steps to prevent the spread of ragwort over many thousands of acres of comparatively clean land in this portion of the Auckland province, and, with that end in view, to devote funds or employ available labour in cleaning up the badly-in-fested areas of Crown and native land that border on the clean country.

The following reply has been received from the Unemployment Commissioner, Mr Malcolm Fraser, by Mr J. Q. Wynyard, who acted as honorary secretary for the conference of local bodies' representatives:— Owing to the pressure of work entailed by the Unemployment Board in the provision of immediate relief for the unemployed, it is regretted that it has been impossible to give earlier consideration to individual sug gestions and applications; hence the delay in replying to your letter oi 24th November, in which you forwarded several resolutions passed at a meeting of representatives of the local bodies centring on Te Awamutu.

The resolutions have now been duly considered, however, and I am directed by the Board to advise you that work in connection with the eradication of ragwort can be carried out on farms under scheme No. 4a, a copy of which is attached for your information.

The general question of clearing ragwort off large areas was referred to the Agricultural Department, ana an extract from the report received from the Director-General of Agriculture, which may be of interest, is appended for your information:— “ Any proposal to spend money or. attempted eradication of ragwort on large areas of unoccupied land is economically unsound unless as a preliminary to immediate sub-division and settlement. Even then it would be cOstly. It is otherwise practically impossible to eradicate ragwort over such areas unless at a prohibitive cost.

“ The position with regard to ragwort is, however, essentially different from what it was _before the introduction of sodium chlorate,. and the presence of flowering ragwort on unoccupied Crown and native land, a on land that is being made use of the owner, does not represent to anything like the same extent the menace that it previously did. No farmer who is threatened with ragwort invasion need view that ragwort on hi. neighbour’s land, or on adjacent unoccupied land, must cause him either to abandon dairying or sooner or later to have to walk off his property. The use of sodium chlorate at comparatively little expenditure, even if only every two years, would enable him to keep his farm reasonably clean to the extent at least that the weed would cause no diminution in his return from the land.

“ The only possible way that weed infection centres on unoccupied land can be dealt with is by bringing such land under settlement, and a good deal of ragwort-infested land, quite apart from the presence of the weed, is quite unsuited for settlement; therefore much of it must permanently remain infested. It would, of course, be possible at great expenditure to destroy the majority of existing ragwort plants over wide areas of waste lands, but such action would only result in the work having to be repeated annuin order to deql with young plants which spring up,‘ and the menace would then not be removed unless the work were repeated annually for some years. “ Nationally, however, it is of importance that the lands that are being made use of should be kept in such a condition that ragwort causes no. appreciable damage, and this can be done by proper spraying with sodium chlorate.”