How Noxious Weeds are Imported

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 111, 9 March 1893, Page 2

How Noxious Weeds are Imported

An object lesson illustrating the manner in which noxious weeds are introduc ed and disseminated throughput the Colony may vow be seen in the Govern* nicnt Agricultural Department. Some time ago a quantity of ballast wirdis* charged from a foreign trading vessel, and placed on the railway reclamation, Featherstone street, and so nice an appearance did it present that many people thought it would make a capital topdressing for their gardens. In a tew days vegetation began to make its ap« pearance on tlie surface, and in due time a rank growth of weeds corered the deposit. Mr T, W. Kirk, of the Agricultural Department, took the trouble to investigate the place, and he obtained ironi it specimens of the following weeds : — Groundsel, clorer burr, two kinds of nettles, wild parsley, black nightshade, shepherd's purse, two young gorse plants, erißeron, mallow, wild cabbnge, wild turnip. Si John's wort, goosq foot, wild pyrethrum, kuot-uras*, lepedium, and last and most formidable of all, the Batliurst burr, and the eren more dreaded Noojjoora burr, known in England as the lesser burdock. The only useful thing found growing on this ballast was a young tomato. The Hail way Commissioners hare been accustomed to take this ballast for the rarious purposes for which they require earth along (heir lines, but as they found both at Lyttcllon and Timaru that it prored the means of introducing hurtful wceJs they had resolved to take uo more of it.