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The Necessity for a Noxious Weeds Bill.

(By M. Murphy, F.L.S.)

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen—A great deal might be said on the question of noxious weeds, and on the injury they inflict on the farming community. But as the time allowed to each paper is limited to fifteen minutes, I shall confine myself to a few of the aspects of the question which appear to me to be of most importance.

While believing that the time has arrived when the Government should be asked to legislate for the suppression of certain kinds of weeds, I am of opinion that no Act of Parliament alone will ever rid the soil of our enemies. I have more faith in education than in legislation.

Permit me for a moment to digress for the purpose of taking a retrospective glance at the condition of things when the white man took possession of this fair land. Not half a century ago the plains of Canterbury, for instance, were handed over by Dame Nature into the keeping of British husbandmen, in their virginity, full of plant food and free from noxious weeds of any kind. A soil ready to respond to the husbandman's rudest touch. It might reasonably have been expected that farmers coming from the weed-infested fields of Britain would have appreciated the pleasure of farming weedless soil, and that they would have endeavoured to have kept it so. However, that precaution was not taken, and hence this Conference is asked to assist the Government in framing a workable Bill for the common protection of farmers against their advancing foes.

The rapidity with which weeds have spread in New Zealand borders on the marvellous. Seeds of weeds have come to us in the first instance in seed cereals, clover and grass seeds, &c., and now we see the pernicious weeds of our Fatherland, with others added, growing in rank luxuriance all over the colony. A very few years ago wild turnip was a comparative stranger. It may now be seen in some districts tinging the landscape with its yellow blossoms in the months of November and December, covering hundreds of acres.

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I have seen wheat growing on land worth £20 per acre capable of yielding 50 to 70 bushels per acre if free from weeds, so infested with wild turnips as only to yield 15 to 20 bushels, making up the difference in wild turnip, fathen, cornbind, and other abominations.

A correspondent, writing of weeds, remarks of fathen that he thinks it must be the "Pusley" referred to by C. D. Warner in "My Summer in a Garden," and which, he says, corresponds to original sin in the vegetable world here. He goes on to say that it is a perfect curse, more especially in dry seasons, as it flourishes in the severest drought. It absolutely ruins all crops if not checked, but is especially troublesome in root crops.

Another correspondent, speaking of the losses sustained by weeds, writes thus:—"Taking the best wheat lands, such as would grow with good management from 40 to 60 bushels of wheat per acre, the depreciation in the selling value of such land by the presence of wild turnip, Californian thistle, or fathen—for these are really our most alarming weeds, at least in the South Island—I should estimate at not less than from 35 to 50 per cent. Farming in the future," he remarks, "must consist of a continual war with weeds. The weeds must be kept down or the farmers will fall before them."

Again, the growing of turnip seed, or indeed any of the cruciferous family of plants, is rendered impracticable, for the reason that no seed could be depended upon grown in districts where wild turnip prevailed.

Surely this is not a creditable state of things for a young colony to be drifting into. The heaviest tax the farmer has now to pay is a self-imposed one in the maintenance of weeds. It is a progressive tax with a vengeance. It is urged that the cost of labour, coupled with the low prices for grain, leaves little available capital for carrying on the war of extermination.

How, then, are weeds to be dealt with? There are three methods which suggest themselves as being feasible. The first is to lay infested lands out to grass—but it must be remembered that this is only putting off the evil day, for however long the land may remain uncultivated, such weeds as wild turnip and fathen will spring up so soon as they are brought by the plough and harrows within reach of the necessary heat and moisture.

Another, and probably a better method, is to keep the infested soil under a continuous course of cropping with rape, oats, barley, tares, page 15 and clover, for feeding off with sheep, never allowing a weed to bloom, with a vigorous use of the harrows on all suitable occasions. This latter system has much to recommend it, especially for soils which do not retain too much moisture during the winter and early spring months. Under no circumstances, however, should a corn crop be allowed to ripen on such lands during this course of treatment.

There is still another method of dealing with certain classes of weeds. It is by wise legislation, in the shape of a Noxious Weeds Bill. An attempt was made last session, as you are aware, in this direction, but too much was attempted, and the Bill happily died in its infancy. Let us hope that the next effort will be more modest in its demands. The object of such a Bill should be rather to protect the frugal and careful farmer against his too negligent neighbour than to harass him with impossible demands, such as clearing his land of certain weeds, and making penalties possible for the non-fulfilment of impossibilities.

Let us legislate against such plants as Californian thistle, sweet-briar, bramble, gorse, broom, Bathurst burr, &c. Sweetbriar is gradually but surely making its way in the South Island, and should be exterminated while it is yet possible to do so. Briar and gorse are taking possession of some of our river-beds, and if left undisturbed they will most assuredly, sooner or later, divert the course of such rivers, causing, it may be, incalculable damage. For this reason I would urge that drastic measures should be directed against these pests. As regards Californian thistle, this pest has now got such complete hold in the country that its total eradication is well nigh hopeless. But heavy penalties should be imposed for allowing this plant to flower or seed. In Tasmania, where legislation has been brought to bear against this plant for some years past, this is all that is now attempted, experience having demonstrated the folly of attempting to eradicate it.

A clause should be introduced into the next Bill making it an offence to send out seeds of any kind infected with the seeds of weeds, such as wild turnip, fathen, and Californian thistle. The machinery for cleansing seeds is now so perfect that there is no excuse for adulterated seeds.

Owners of threshing plants should be prevented, under heavy penalties, from removing their plant from one farm to another without first thoroughly cleaning them of all rubbish and seeds. The transport of threshing plants from one farm to another along the public page 16 roads is a fruitful source of contamination. I once saw half a three-bushel bag of Californian thistle heads taken out of a threshing machine after it had been removed to another farm.

I submit that I have now touched upon what should be the main features of such a Noxious Weeds Bill as would probably be found to meet the requirements of the colony. Many persons object to be legislated for in the management of their farms. Nor would there be any necessity for doing so were all to recognise what was to their own interest. But when farmers neglect the ordinary principles of good husbandry, and that to the detriment of their neighbours and of the State, then legislation becomes desirable.

Legislative enactments for the suppression of weeds have been resorted to in other countries. There is (or was) a law in France obliging farmers to free their lands of thistles at certain seasons of the year, and empowering anyone to sue a neighbour who neglects this work. In some States in America there are stringent enactments against troublesome weeds.

In Denmark, farmers were compelled to root up corn marigold (a brother of our oxeye daisy, which is becoming a pest in some of our pasture lands)

Referring to ancient records, we find that in Scotland a statute of Alexander II., about the year 1220, was directed against the corn thistle, which was considered to be peculiarly pernicious to corn fields.

The statute is very short, and ably expressed. It denounces that man as a traitor who poisons the King's land with weeds. Bondsmen who had this plant in their corn were fined a sheep for each stalk, and under the authority of that law Sir William Grierson, a Scottish baron, was accustomed to hold "Goul-Courts," for the express purpose of fining the farmers in whose growing crops three heads or upwards of that weed were found.

Arbitrary as such a law may appear to those of the present day, there was still a large measure of wisdom in the enactment; and although we may not now advocate extreme measures, the time has arrived when the State should interfere, and by a wise exercise of its power frame and enforce such laws as will prevent the spread of certain noxious weeds which inflict heavy losses on the farming community and the State as well.