THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8162, 20 June 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1906.

A friend of the Paris correspondent of Olirlstctyiroh Truth has found a cheap Mud effective way of getting rid of thistles and other noxious weeds, which will no doubt be of considerable interest to New Zealanders. He spent some years in experimenting on the obstinate thistle, and finally hit upon the ideu of poisoning it by means of certain refuse from gasworks, which the French call "orud." It seems that Ironstone of the cheapest sort, , after being wetted, is placed in huge iron chests, and the impure gas iB allowed to filter through it. The ore, being very poroas, swells, and absorbs most, of the impurities, among fchem being poisonous hydrocyanic acid. After some hours the iron ore becomes saturated, and unfit

for farther duty, and ia thrown away. This ia the "crud," and ia said to be perfectly useless except for the purpose discovered by the.friend of the correspondent. The method of extermination is to send labourers over the fields with bags of "orud" slung over tneir shoulders, early in the year when the thistles are a couple of inches high. On every thistle the labourer drops a email tablespoonful of the powder, and in a few hours the weed is killed root and branch. After a couple of weeks, under the influence of weather, the poisonous cyanide is turned into saltpetre, and the ground is not only cleansed of thistles for years, but is also manured. The stuff has to be used carefully. It will kill weeds, but it will also kill earthworms, whioh are so necessary in mixing earth, and rendering stiff soil friable, so it is well to see that the men who use it do not scatter it broadcast. A small insecticide bellows is said to be a good vehicle for the distribution of the powder. Also, farmers must not let animals into yards where it is piled up, nor into fields where it has been recently used to kill thistles. The announcement of the disoovery has created a fgood deal of interest in Great Britain, and no doubt it will be of similar interest to New Zealand farmers who are troubled with noxious weeds.