PASTORAL PESTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4948, 31 January 1877, Page 3

PASTORAL PESTS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sjr,—You call attantipu in. your, leaden of to-day to the alarming, spread of diseases in the Australian flocks, and. the probable occurrence and prospect, of a similar misfortune in this country. The 'subject is a most serious one.- We have already the louse .on the West Coast, and among the long-wools in other places. A weakness Of the lungs and canker of.them from a parasitical worm is beginning to cause sensible loss, here and there where too much iu-breedmg has been practised. It is not, however, with respect to any of these diseases of the sheep itself that I now write. - We-have’rabbits destructively spread over , a large aud increasing area -of certain soils. Gorae has become a very great nuisance, aud will be a greater there is another plague which in the; provincial districts of Wellington and Hawke’s Bay may-yet bo checked. Violets smell anything but sweet to the fox-hunter ; the sheepowner ought to have the same dislike for • sweetbriar. In Tasmania it has done and iadoing an immensity of harrn/ ; ;'Some thousands i f acres are overrun by it in Nelson; Hera the evil is J only just beginning-•! stitch In; time r sayes \ nine.” A moderate amount Of labor expended i at once by the owners and oecupiers: of land: here and in IFawkVs Bay would ■ prevent i this pest frommkking chead; -If is a little thick about Feathers ton, and shows itself j in detached to Napier. The seedlis just not ripe, and in, a week dr two ; will bS carried In every direction! by the quail and- and other bird?, it should' be- the- duty of sfaeepowners to see that e /ery itodwn biiah'ls cut down and burut. SweebriarmpnopoJiaes'thegrqundjpullaoffthe wool, Is'-protectcS hy its thbrns fi-otn being eaten,-won’t, .*pr|ng,again from ; a small fibrd;of,r6dt. . There ai-e some crimes of -neglect,; cot-punishable by. law. which in their resnltai 'are'ad bad dr worse than murder. We ought to avoid such, and root out the briars,— I am, Ac. ' . 'J. C. Andrew. January 29. - - ...