COLLECTION OF WEEDS.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXI, Issue 3268, 22 May 1895, Page 6

COLLECTION OF WEEDS.

ii i i i ' Mr T. W. Kirk, the Government biologist, ; has a cdlpction of weeds Numbering some 240 or 250 species, which he has divided as follows : — (1) Spinous plants and burrs damaging wool ; (2) weeds of cultivated lands ; (3) weeds of pasture land ; (4) weeds bf water courses ; (5) parasitic plants, such as dodder, &c. The collection was inspected with the greatest interest at Dunedin (says the Daily Times), and the absolute necessity of some legislation to cope with the cvi's arising from the propagation of weeds was frequently expressed. The following ig an extract fram the report of Mr Kirk to the Government in| 1894 :—' It has bpen remarked that tSe weeds of ac-untryare not usually] indigenous to that c-Mjn«rv, and this | remark apjl^s very fc'-ib'v to New Zealand. Our weeds are imported. Plants under natural cot ditions are not frequently weeds ; it is when the ! conditions* of growth become unnaturally favourable that they develop and multiply so rapidly as to be considered injurious t<> the husbandman and paßtorali«t. Unfortunately, this colony appears to supply these unnaturally favourable conditions to a very undesirable degree ; for weeds, fungi, and injurious insects alike mult»plv i' our genial climate to a moet marvellous extent. . The weeds in this country may be likened to an invading army which, if not carefully watched and opposed at every point, will soon wrest the soil from the lawful possessors/