Pests that Have Cost Millions

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 520, 24 November 1928, Page 26

Pests that Have Cost Millions

(WRITTEN for THE SUN by TANO FAMA)

BHE animal and weed pests of the Dominion have cost this country millions of pounds. The ragwort, for instance, has spread over large areas in the Taranaki district, causing the price of land to slump. This weed was probably introduced in grass seed. Its New Zealand origin can be definitely traced to one particular farm, which has been for a long period unoccupied. Gorse was introduced by an early missioner at Kerikeri, in the Bay of Islands, and Darwin, who visited New Zealand on the Beagle in 1535, describes how he found gorse being used as fences. He also noted finding the sweetbriar and the onion plant being cultivated at the same place. He

predicted that the latter would become a serious pest in the years to come —and it certainly has. Bathurst burr, which is a curse in Australia, has long since reached New Zealand, and thousands of acres in the North of Auckland are covered with it. A doctor friend of mine relates how he came across a dear old lady at Mangawhare carefully watering a prickly pear cactus! And two or three months ago I saw a blackberry plant, transported from the mainland, being nurtured iu the garden of a Stewart Island boardinghouse. A lady tourist, who visits the Dominion at regular intervals brought the liverwort plant to New Zealand and introduced it to the Hamurana stream at Rotorua because she liked its pretty (Continued on Page 27)