P.—No. 9.

is a great difference of opinion as to whether the thistle is noxious or not. One fatal objection to the Thistle Ordinance was the existence of thistles on tho Crown lauds. Ido not think it fair that the Crown lands should be allowed to grow seed, and that private individuals should be compelled to keep their land clear. lam not aware of any individual cases of hardship, as the Ordinance was scarcely put in force at all. Mr. Armstrong was examined, and stated — I am Member for the District of Akaroa, in the Province of Canterbury. There is a Thistle Ordinance in that Province, and it hm not been repealed so far as lam aware. I know several cases which I think had better not have occurred. The police had the power in the Akaroa District to act as Inspectors and they gave notice to several persons to remove the thistles from their land; whereas the seed was blown upon it from the Crown lands adjoining. They not only issued notices, but threatened to summon the parties which was quite as bad as if they had summoned them. I called the attention of the police to thistles which were growing upon Crown lands adjacent to mine. That happened three years ago. 1 think the law was rigorously enforced then. In the following year, 1868, the Superintendent sent persons round to destroy the"thistles. Last year tho Act became a dead-letter in my district, and was not enforced so far as lam aware. I heard a great many complaints two years ago _ 1 have always considered it oppressive that Crown lands should be allowed to bo nurseries for thistle seed, whilst private parties were compelled to keep them down on their lands. lam not aware of the Act having been put in force in other parts of Canterbury, except from the newspapers. I know four of tho petitioners, and I think there can be no doubt as to the genuineness of the petition. lam certain that the gentleman (Mr Fleming) whose name appears first on the list of signatures would not complain if he had not good cause for doing so. I think that the Ordinance ought to be repealed, as it is impossible to carry out its provisions without doing injustice ; and besides, I do not think that thistles can bo eradicated " I know one place, near Little Akaloa, where there is a block of at least 5,C00 acres of Crown land which is nothing but a mass of thistles. I may say, that when the policeman came to my place to threaten me he rode through thistles which were up to the horse's girths, all along the road. lhcro is a stream between the road and my property, so that my land does not actually abut on tnat road. There were not more than about a dozen thistles on my land.

Mr. Curtis.' 2xfl August, 1870.

Mr. Armstrong. 2nd August, 1870.

■Wednesday, 3ed August, IS7O. Mr. Cracroft Wilson, 0.8., was examined, and stated— lam Member for the Electoral District of Coleridge, in the Province of Canterbury. A Thistle Ordinance was passed in 1862 by the Provincial Council, in the hopes of preventing the introduction of thistles into the Province. That Act was amended in 1860, and the amended Act is now in force. My estate at Cashmere is divided amongst four Boad Districts. One of those districts is called the Spreydon District. Within the limits of that district I have several hundred acres ot swamp, which I have drained at an immense expense. The result of burning the Maori-heads and tho flax in the reclaimed swamp has been, that showers of thistle seed have come down from waste lands of the Crown on the hills above, and thistles have been sown broadcast over that land. It has never boon objected to me that there are any thistles to be found in several hundreds of acres of meadow land; but m the swamp land above alluded to, which I cannot cultivate at all until 1 have dug up all the forest wood buried in it I find it is impossible to keep down tho thistles in this reclaimed but as yet uncultivated land. Tho Spreydon Eoad Board applied to the Superintendent, under the Ordinance of 1860 to appoint the Clerk of the Board Thistle Inspector for that district. The Superintendent did so and published his name as Inspector in the Spreydon Eoad Board District only, but he did not publish any regulations for his guidance, as required by the Ordinance Informations were laid against mo from time to time by the Clerk of the Board, and between tho Ist December, 1869 and April, 1870 I expended about £120 in attempting to destroy the thistles. Notwithstanding all tins 1 was fined a sum which, with Court expenses, amounted to £8, although the Ordinance expressly says that if a person informed against has done his best, it is in the power of the Besident Magistrate to re. rain from inflicting the fine. The Clerk of the Eoad Board, in his capacity as Thistle Inspector, engaged a number of men at Gs. a day, and an overseer at 75., and sent them upon my premises and at envards sued mo for their wages. "The case was dismissed, on my proving by competent witnesses that che work done by those men was perfectly useless, as far as the purport of the Act was concerned, for they did not eradicate the thistles where they worked. These men were hired in a very ostentatious way. The Clerk of the Board actually put an advertisement in the paper inviting labourers to apply to hmi for work on good wages, to eradicate the thistles on my estate. In justice to the Superintendent, 1 must say that when he saw this advertisement he instantly withdrew the powers which he had conferred on certain Eoad Boards that their clerks should be Thistle Inspectors, and among them was the Sproydon Eoad Board I may mention that so indifferent was the Clerk of the Board, who was also Surveyor to the Board, as to where he sent these labourers, that he actually sent a gang of four men to work and they commenced work in that portion of my estate which is in the Il.alsweH District, over which ho had no authority whatever. I sued the Thistle Inspector for trespass for this act, and I was nonsuited, on. the plea that under tho Ordinance any Thistle Inspector could go trom one end of tho 1 rovineo to the othcr-that is, from the Hurunui to the Waitangi—and lay an information against any person he pleased. Be it known that tho Gazette, which was the only regulation that the Superintendent had issued, notified that the Clerk of the Spreydon Eoad Board was to be Inspector of Thistles in the Spreydon District only. Considerable time must elapse before I can get this dried swamp into cultivation and lay it down with grass, yet the limit allowed in the Ordinance for eradicating thistles is three days ; and with the expenditure of the sum above mentioned, tho thistles in that swamp have perfectly beaten mo. On the 11th of December I finished sowing with barley a field of twenty-two acres maiden land-ploughed up for the first time-part of this dried swamp. Tins laud was ploughed up twice, and harrowed about ten times. Every weed was removed from the land. The crop was reaped m the

Mr. Wilson, C.S. 3rd August, 1870.

6

REPORTS ON PETITIONS RELATIVE TO