The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1896. A NOXIOUS WEED.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 130, 1 December 1896, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1896. A NOXIOUS WEED.

Fbo.m time to time the Government of this co'ony have introduced measures to Parliament with a view to check the in;portation, either by design or accident, of noxious weeds, or if so introduced, to provide for their eradication. In Canada, where similar precautions were not taken in time the farmers are having a terrib.'e fight wilh the creeping thistle, which increased so terribly within two years of its accidental introduction that it became an overwheniing nuisance. In consequence a Thistle Act was passed containing very stringent clauses, giving Inspectors power to enter any man's land and examine it for traces of the weed. The Russian thistle, which is not really a thistle at all, but comes under the Thistle Act for all thKt, is a plant the very mention of which exasperates the unfortunate farmer of Manitoba. Like the thistle, its kaves are bard and prickly, but so much more venomous that, in fields infested by it, horses cannot even be put to work, for the pricking of its spiny leaves causes their legs to swell and fester painfully. It was in 1889 that the Russian thistle crossed from the Dakotaa into Manitoba, and settled on a farm still pointed out. la two years it had spread far and wide, literally choking whole crops. The Government, however, took every means to check its ravages. Lecturers were sent to the infested districts to teach the farmers how best to deal with tbe pest, pamphlets were printed to the same effect, and the railway employees were taught the necessity of looking out for the thistle and killing it on sight. In spite of ail precautions it spread two years h«jo to Ontario, but had a very hostile reception, and it is hoped its first appearance will be its last. "It is wonderful," says a writer in the Field, " to see the intense inte rest shown when a Government lecturer on tour speaks on the subject of noxious weeds and their extermination. Farmers will come from any distance to usk questions and listen to advice; indeed, it is quite obvious that there the war against thistles and other injurious weeds is th« burning question of the hour." It wou'd be well if the New Zealand farmer displayed more interest in tbe destruction of noxious weeds, although happily he is not quite so over riddea by. them «s the Canadian farmer appears to bo.