NOXIOUS WEEDS EVIL

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43107, 20 June 1907, Page 4

NOXIOUS WEEDS EVIL

Noxious weeds have left their, mark in New Zealand, and have caused land owners' -considerable anxiety, but concerted action on the part of authorities is doing mudhi to root out the evil. We read that enormous tracts of the finest grazing land in Tasmania have been, ruined by the growth of sweet briar and gorse, and Tasmania has lost the use of it® finest river by the spread of watercress planted years agio by an enterprising farmer and allowed to grow unchecked. The Argentine Republic suffered the loss of hundreds of thousands it® most valuable grazing acres t .ough the ravages of the Europe" listle. The seeds were imported IL , the cheap wheat which had been bought for planting, and the farmers not taking the trouble to sift the wheat from the thistle seed" before planting, sowed a -crop which has been the ruin of their field®!' The harm, was planted be"ond remedy yjhenj the wheat was put in the ground, for the wheat fields were soon Covered with! a dense growth of thistles and the land had to be abandoned. It is now an impenetrable thicket which harbour wild birds and beasts of prey. The grazing lands of Australia: were gown with ruin in much the same way. Less than bO years ago a large number of! 'lndian bred ponies were imported from Patagonia. In the long hair of their coat® were hidden the seeds of the hated Bathurst weed, which soon took root in the Australian soil and spread very rapidly, utterly ruining the pastures.