THE SMALL BIRD PEST.

Dominion, Issue 1337, 15 January 1912, Page 8

THE SMALL BIRD PEST.

TROUBLE IN THE WAIEARAPA. The small bird nuisauco lias not shown any diminution this season in and round Masterton (says tho "Daily Times"). Starlings, thrushes, and blackbirds have not been slow in attacking the small fruits in tho orchard, both in town and in the outskirts. Many fruit-growers havo been compelled to adopt expensive measures to combat tho pests, wire-netting being often the only safeguard to the fruit on account of tho feathered pilferers not suffering in any way from timidity. Concerted action at the proper time, in the direction of poisoning operations, would havo beneficial effect, and in this connection it is regrcttablo that tho Wairarapa Fruitgrowers' Association—a flourishing organisation of three or four seasons ago—perished from inanition. ■ The association might by now havo reduced tho small bird pest by a.minimum, and thus would havo conferred a .lasting benefit on the orchard and farming community. A Masterton fruit producer informed a representative of tho "Times" that tho effect of a severe hailstorm experienced a short while back is plainly to bo seen upon tho apple crops. Thesame authority says' that tho changeable season has not had a good effect on several classes of fruit, and .particularly so with apples, as the latter are scarrred and pitted with ho 1"* , as if suffering from •the ravages of tho codlin moth and are very much spoilt in appearanco for selling purposes. Tomatoes are reported to bo fully a month behind the normal period for "ripening, and are still fetching high prices. Raspberries are about tho only fruit concerning which thoroughly satisfactory reports are received, it "being considered that Masterton's raspberry* crop this season has been a phenomenally heavy one, tho fruit being abundaut and large in size, and the attacks of the red spider have been comparatively insignificant.