NOXIOUS WEEDS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5481, 30 September 1929, Page 2

NOXIOUS WEEDS.

FESCUE AND BLACKBERRY.

QUESTIONS BY MR SAMUEL. During the discussion oh noxious weeds in the committee on the Estimates of Agriculture and Mines Mr A. M. Samuel, M.P., put the following questions to the Minister of Agriculture which, at the time, the Minister did not answer :— ' Hauraki Plains and Fescue. Mr Samuel said he would like the Minister to state what was being done to combat the menace of tall fescue on the Hauraki Plains, where the weed had already driven a number of returned soldiers off their farms. He had promised a recent deputation that an experimental plot would be set aside so that the mineral contents of the ground could be ascertained, and Mr Samuel asked what had been done in that direction.

Mu Samuel later referred to the item of £6O provided for assistance to farmers in isolated districts in the matter of obtaining fertilisers. A farmer living in the back-blocks of the East Coast district should receive the same concession as a man living on the railway route.' Farmers' in the Mercury Bay district would be materially assisted iif< granted similar benefits to those, enjoyed by other farmers. The sum of £lO,OOO was offered as a bonus for. the eradication of the blackberry, but it would take too long for a claimant to prove his claim. The Minister should tell the House what his department was doing in this direction. Blackberry).plants were first imported into New Zealand over sixty years ago, when the berries were regarded as a luxury and the plants were retailed at 2s 6d per dozen. He wished to know whether the department had any advice to offer farmers as to the best means for keeping down the blackberry pest. He realised that its total eradication was improbable.