PLANT SALES ILLEGAL?

Taranaki Daily News, 19 September 1940, Page 8

PLANT SALES ILLEGAL?

EDUCATION BOARD VIEW EDUCATION BOARD'S VIEW

"Officialdom run riot," remarked Mr. W. H. Jones at the meeting of the Taranaki Education Board yesterday when a letter was received from the Agricultural Department's orchard instructor at New Plymouth drawirig attention to the allegedly illegal action of the Tahora school committee in offering shrubs and plants grown in the school grounds for sale. As the practice was stated to have been fairly widespread among schools, helping. committees to extend afforestation work encouraged by the board, it was decided to make representations to the department to have schools exempted from the regulation. He had visited Tahora and found that trees were being offered for sale by the Tahora school contrary to the Nursery Registration Regulations, 1939, wrote Mr. D. B. Offen. Prescribed trees or plants, he explained, meant any fruit tree or plant, tomato plant, timber or shelter tree or plant, hedge plant, ornamental tree or shrub or rose plant,. He. also gave the definition of "sell," which meant to exchange for money or barter, and explained the necessity for making application in writing to the director of the horticultural division of the Department of Agriculture, Wellington, for registration, not less than one month before any prescribed tree or plant is sold for replanting, acoompanied by a fee of £1. If all the trees raised by the schools were assembled, packed and dispatched from one point only one registration would be necessary, but if'the work were carried out at each property? a separate registration would be required at each area proposed to be used as a nursery. Must Give Plants Away?

Schools had for years been in the habit of exchanging trees or selling them to obtain funds to advance afforestation work, said Mr. S. G. Smith. Apparently all the schools could do now would be to give the plants away. Schools in Taranaki had done more for the propagation of plants than any other district, it was stated. At one stage it was reported that 33 acres of school sites had been planted as the result of cooperative effort among the schools. The money was used for the further development of plots. Some farmers, too, would exchange a load of manure for trees and such local co-operation would be killed, it was considered. During last ' year 12,805 trees and shrubs, mostly native, had " been propagated in Taranaki, it was stated by the secretary, Mr. H. W. Insull. On the motion of Dr. W. M. Thomson and Mr. W. H. Jones it was decided to forward to the Education Department a copy of the letter together with a covering letter giving the board's attitude.