"BATHURST BURR."

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 128, 18 April 1893, Page 2

"BATHURST BURR."

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAII. - Sik, —l shall esteem it a favor if yon will, in your popular paper, call the attention of settlers, and, in fact everyone whom it may concern, to the alarming fact that this " demon burr " of Australia j has made its appearance in this part, and unless totally eradicated ere it seeds the I amount it will cost to even combat it at all will be enormous. Having been a resident; in Australia for more than 20 years, I am well acquainted with its peculiarities from tbe time it first makes its appearance above ground until it is finally crushed out in the tweed and woollen factories- During the course of a stroll through Parawanui (lower Rangitikei) recently I came across the old enemy in blossom, and shortly, of course, to seed, covering several acres of ground near the Maori pab. Although not personally or directly interested myself, I deem it a duty I owe to the country settler to caution him in tbe most emphatic way against this —the most barefaced wool robber in existence. Its destruction is simple, if taken in time, viz., first prior to seeding cut at least one incb below the surface of the ground with an ordinary sharp garden hoe. I have destroyed acres of it and know only too well the fearful trouble it has been to settlers, squatters, and land holders in Australia. One station in Queensland annually expends over £1000 to even keep it down, in a similar way that the land owners in New Zealand do in the cause of the rabbit pest (say for instance in the Wairarapa). Wool worth lOd per lb has been reduced to 2Ad per lb when Bathurst burr was discovered to be thickly embedded in it. The seed is oval in shape, about half an inch iv length, and contains sometimes as many as 100 to 150 little hooks, each of which when released from the sheep's back or fleece (when shorn) takes with it several fibres of wool, which runs up to a large total when sheep are, as I haye seen them, literally covered with them. I cannot enlarge on the terrible curse this noxious weed will eventually become if not immediately checked. In fact it would take a Yankee to do that. I consider it would be a boon to the settlors generally if you could make this as public as possible—the Stab being in almost eyery settler's house for miles round. Any information I can give at any time and to anyone I shall be most happy to do —addressing me at the P. 0., Wanganui, as my business necessitates almost constant travelling. . I am, etc., Cyril P. Stanton.