THE CALIFORNIAN THISTLE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1702, 23 February 1888, Page 3

THE CALIFORNIAN THISTLE.

Mr Murphy, the Secretary of the Canterbury A. and P. Association, who has just returned from a visit to the Australasian colonies, has given the following information with respect to the Californian thistle to the Lyttelton Times“ In Tasmania the thistle has become such a pest that they have appointed an inspector to deal with it, and passed a special Act to deal with those upon whose land it can be discovered. The inspector is Mr Tabart, brother of Mr Tabart, of Christchurch. It was in the north that the seriousness of the thistle plague was most apparent. There is a fertile farming district where hundreds of’small farmers make an easy living by growing potatoes and wheat alternately. They have been doing it for these five and twenty years, without exhausting the soil, finding a market in Sydney, They are very happy, having no large private indebtedness and no difficulty in living. But they are beginning to feel the pest, and there was every reason to suppose that it was largely on the increase. One leased farm of 2QO acres I inspected had been abandoned by the lessee altogether. The owner was about to try fallowing. the inspector estimates'that,2ooo acres of land were rendered totally worthless on account of,-the thistle. _ Ton may judge for yourself what his opinion of the matter is—‘if it costs the New Zealand Government £IOO,OOO to get rid of it fmxthe colony, it will be money well •pent.*. That is what he said to me. *‘Near Hobart they are terribly ibnot about it: The Government have begun to handle the matter with vigor. They know that if one man alloys the pest to get headway, he causes destruction all round him. So the old Act on the subject has been made ihore stringent. The inspector yas cramped in bis action before. Now he can report to the police and get a farmer heavily fined, not only lor having the plant on his land at all, but even for having seed in any hay or, straw that he knowingly offers for sale. Clause 8 in the new Act renders him liable on conviction, for this offence, to a penalty not exceeding £25 and not less than £2. “But they can he got rid of by industry and perseverance. I came across one man who had cleared his farm of them with a hoe, by persistently rooting them out. He never allowed them to seed. Another man bad succeeded by first fallowing and then scuffling once * week for two

years. The people over there are beginning to recognise that the pest can be got rid of, and their principle is that those who will not try to get rid of it must be made to do so.

“ Of course, I enquired about waste lands, railway lines and reserves. That is certainly a difficulty. But the Board, or whoever is responsible, must cut them down continually, and never allow them to seed. They must not wait for them to appear above the ground.”