COUNTRIES RUINED BY WEEDS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVII, Issue 8780, 11 June 1907, Page 3

COUNTRIES RUINED BY WEEDS.

Enormous tracts of the finest grazing laud in Tasmania have been ivaned by the growth of sweet briar and gorse, and Tasmania has lost the use of its finest river by the spread of watercress planted years ago by an enterprising farmer and allowed to grow unchecked. The Argentine Republic suffered the loss of hundreds of thousands of its most validjgftjgrazing acres through the ravages clime European thistle. The seeds were imported in the cheap wheat which had been bought for planting, aud 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 fields. The harm was planted beyond remedy when 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 harbours wild birds and beasts of prey.

The grazing lands of Australia were sown with ruin in much the same way. Less than fifty years ago a large number of Indian-bred ponies were imported from Patagonia. In the long hair of their coats were hidden the seeds of the hated Batlmrst weed, which soon took root in the Australian soil and spread rapidly,utterly ruining the pastures.