RAGWORT ERADICATION

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 312, 18 December 1936, Page 4

RAGWORT ERADICATION

Scheme To Be Continued In Stratford County.

j The ragwort eradication scheme i which has been carried out by the ! Stratford County Council in co-opera-ition with the Department of Agriculture will be continued at the begin- | nine of the new year on properties | where farmers are able to supply the ! materials, sodium and lime. i The clerk, Mr. C. J. Campbell, at I the monthly meeting to-day, said that | an amount of £250 had been spent on i I the scheme. The Department’s sup- | plies of material had run out, howI ever, as the scheme had been planned I on a basis of one man sowing three hundredweight per day and the Stratford County men had sown at the rate of nine hundredweight per day. As a result the council had had to meet most of the material cost for this period. He had applied for a further £4OO conditionally on the Department refunding cost of materials and meeting half the cost of labour. No reply i had so far been received. I Fifteen properties had been treated I and a very good job had been made iof the work. Several letters of appreciation had been received from settlers. Cr. C. J. Skitrop said that some farmers in his riding would be prepared to find materials if they were allowed to board the men; ; That, scheme had been tried before | but the Department had formed the j opnnion that the men were being put ! to ordinary farm work, it was stated.

■ “I think there is something in that, j but it does not apply to the men I speak of. They are anxious to help in the eradication of the pest, but cannot afford to pay men £3 per week and find materials as well,’ said Cr. Skitrop. | Some of them, he continued, had the j material on their farms at present. • Mr. Campbell said that a scheme jby which the men could be made j available to farmers who had already ■ got materials on hand would fit in ' very well for the first week of the new year. Even if a further allocation ■ were granted it would not be possible ;to get supplies of sodium by that i time. ! The council decided to carry on I with the scheme in such cases from ; the beginning of January, the men to }be under the charge of the county I inspector and to return to Stratford ieach evening.