THE THISTLE QUESTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1199, 4 March 1880, Page 2

THE THISTLE QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — I have just read, with some interest, your article in to-day's issue on "The Thistle Question." As you solicit correspondence on the subject, will you allow me space for a few remarks on this "burning question." That the growth, and even the cultivation, of the Scotch thistle has been attended with beneficij^. results to the land on the large cattle runs of Napier I will not deny. It may have done all that has been said of it ; but when it is attempted to prove that thistles may be grown on our Waikato lands with profit to the proprietors of farms, I am fain to say that experience so far leads me strongly to disapprove of this theory. I remember well the time you mention when, four years ago, this matter was discussed in all its phases at several meetings of the Cambridge Farmers' Club, and a paper was on one occasion read by a member, who, if he had been now living, would, I think, have considerably modified the opinions lie then expressed. He gave it as his opinion, which on the whole was accepted by most of thu members present, with some degree of plausiblenebs, that time would prove the thistle to be not altogether an unmitigated evil, and read in support of his arguments the letter you refer to from a Napier runholder. The matter then dropped. Four years have passed away, and what do we see now ? A very large proportion of the country becoming every year more and more overgrown with an impenetrable mass of thistles. Your informant recommends sowing the thistle-down and a light seeding of white clover, then stocking with cattle. This I may say has been done (self-sown thistles) in the Pukerimu district ; and what is the result 'I Why, that every year the thistles are encroaching on the land, killing out the clover, and by degrees driving the cattle off the lield, they themselves remaining " monarchs of all they survey." I do not hesitate to say that in the Pukekura Highway Dib- [ tnct there are hundreds of aeret> of firstclass land which have for the last three years been — and goodness only knows for how much longer they will remain so — utterly worthless for all practical purposes. And yet you tell us that the thistle is a fine thing — a thing to be en- ! couraged. Ido not say but that on &ome lands — lands of a heavy clayey subsoil, for instance — they may do good ; but the experiehce of the past four years, and I i have observed closely, only leads me more [ strongly to the opinion which I have I always held from the very first, that on | our light, bandy subsoil hinds they cannot | but prove a nuisance and an evil. I beliuve there are farms — and large farms, too — in this district which are deteriorated '• hilly £\ an acre by being &o overrun with these "beautiful flowers.'* My own opinion is that the farmers of the Waikato will be serving their best interests by keeping them down as much as possible. Taking advantage of the winter season of the year, they may easily be cleared away, the land ploughed over, and a crop of Swede turnips sown in November, which would, I think, prove far more profitable to the proprietor. — I am, &c, Henry Buttle. Pukerimu, March 2nd.