Pests that Have Cost Millions

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 520, 24 November 1928, Page 27

Pests that Have Cost Millions

(Continued from Page 26) brown colour. To-day it bids fair to ruining the fishing in the Hamurana district. California thistle came packed in agricultural machinery. The willow tree is a great menace in the Waikato River areas. It is short-lived, and when it dies forms snags, which hinder the free flow of water. ’iShe willow was introduced for ornamental purposes by the missiouers who lived in the Waikato in the early days of New Zealand. The ox-eyed daisy came with grass seed. The foxglove (digitalist, a poisonous flowering plant, probably

spread from some old, neglected garden. It is a real pest in many places throughout the South Island, and particularly between Blenheim and Nelson. The dock was first introduced by a scoundrelly whaler who sold it to the Maori as tobacco plant. It has cost us a lot of trouble and money. The advent of “friend” rabbit was brought about through the Englishman’s desire to make New Zealand more like the English countryside. The stoats and weasels, which are exterminating our native birds, were imported for the purpose of doing away with the rabbits. The Norwegian rat escaped from a Norwegian vessel, and in two years is said to have practically exterminated the native blue rat (kiore) in the Auckland province. The katipo, our only venomous spider, came from the Malay Archipelago, via Australia. The deer imported from various parts of the world have increased so rapidly that it is costing the Government thousands of pounds to thin them out.

The greatest pest of all, however, is the mosquito, and it is essential that elaborate preparations should be made to exterminate this most obnoxious pest.