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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 170, 24 January 1912, Page 4

A contemporary has published some interesting facts in connection with the rapid spread of weeds, which has been one of the most undesirable results of the occupancy of New Zealand by white people. A virgin soil was found here almost devoid of harmful weeds, yet within fifty years weeds are almost as bad as they were in countries that are centuries old. Perhaps their advent was inevitable seeing that all our grass and cereal and root seeds came from Great Britain, America and the Continent., Seed - cleaning machinery was not always as perfect as it now is. Exporters were sometimes not as scrupulous as they should have been in the purity of the seeds sent out here, and farmers were not as careful as they might have been to see that thev were

sowing nothing but good seed. Often quality has been sacrificed to cheapness, with the result that the country is now saddled with the nevef-ending cost and labor of keeping down weeds of all sorts. And most of these weeds throve remarkably well on their introduction to the virgin soil of New Zenland. Not only did they grow very fast and very healthily, but they reproduced their kind in an unusually'prolific way. This has been the case with almost all the pests that have gained entrance into the Dominion. Farmers would study their own interests by purchasing seeds of an absolutely reliable nature. If cheap seeds are placed on the market they are dear in the long fun, 1 theintroduction of weeds into pastures means the expenditure of a large amount of money to eradicate them, and that position can be avoided by purchasing from firms who scrupulously avoid selling seeds which are impure or of low-grade quality. Seeing that the matter; is of such importance to the Dominion it is time that protection was afforded by legislation, the provisions of which should not be too drastic or they would probably be found unworkable.