Plant Pests In

Fiji

Rapid Spread Causes Alarm

ALARM at the spread of noxious plants and weeds in Fiji was expressed by one of the Colony’s most experienced residents, Mr. H. H. Ragg, when address ing the Legislative Council in November.

Mr. Ragg said that, after the last war, the Government had become very much alive to the plant pests of the Colony— introduced and existing—and a special ordinance to check their spread had been passed and prosecuted for 10 or 15 years, but the law had now become a dead let ter. It was possible to travel completely round the island of Viti Levu and see these pests increasing day by day, week by week and year by year. To-day the situation was becoming desperate, and on the north-west coast there were acres of Koster’s Curse and guava, covering large areas of arable and grazing land.

It was wrong that the ordinances should not be enforced, said Mr. Ragg, and wrong that a clean farmer should be ruined by the negligence of another. He urged that something be done to the pests at once, and that in more propitious times the pests be eradicted. Fiji had a large number of agricultural inspectors, and where it was possible these officials should insist that the law was carried