NOXIOUS WEEDS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5466, 26 August 1929, Page 3

NOXIOUS WEEDS.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE. MODES OF ERADICATION. The Minister of Lands, the Hon G. W. Forbes, made several interesting statements in the House recently regarding noxious weeds and their attempted eradication when he was answering questions put by members. Ragwort Moth. Replying tp Mt Wilkinson, who asked whether steps were being taken to see that the cinnabar moth grub for the destruction of ragwort would be properly distributed from each experimental section of the country where the moth was now established, in order that the widest area would benefit by the destruction of ragwort the Minister replied :— The liberation of the ragwort moth last season in four selected areas was merely preliminary and but a phase of the experiment to determine if the larvae would control ragwort under New Zealand conditions. This had not yet been proved. Dr. Miller, chief of the entomological department of the Cawthion Institute, under whose supervision the experiment was being conducted, proposed this season to attempt to rear and distribute throughout the country large supplies of the insect. Arrangements would also be made for the distribution from ex ; perimental areas of plants infested with the disease if there had been multiplication to an extent sufficient to permit of the adoption of such a course of action. Bracken. Mr Kyle asked the Minister whether his attention had been drawn to the successful eradication of bracken by a fungoid disease in Scotland, and if he was prepared to make investigations and experiments in this Dominion with the same object in view. In reply Mr Forbes said that arrangements had been made for Dr. Cunningham, the department’s mycologist, who loft New Zealand recently to attend the Imperial Mycological Conference, to look into the matter with a view to arranging for experiments to be conducted in the Dominion if confirmation of the report was obtained. Weeds and Crown Land. Mr Polson’s question, whether arrangements would be made to absorb a certain number of unemployed in cutting weeds and preventing further deterioration on Crown lands and abandoned farms, elicited the following reply A large sum of money was expended annually in labour in cutting noxious weeds on Crown and Native lands, and full consideration was given to any requests for the clearing of weeds in any particular area. It was hoped that the Government’s intention of stimulating the settlement of the undeveloped Crown lands in the future would result in the deterioration referred to being checked.