Jem. 2, 190S.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S.TT. 47 



adaptability of exotic plants (hiring fair to Linod seasons, as well as the 

 proliticucy of these and native herbs. 



These rabbits, apj^earini;' in millions, devastated the euinitry tirst from 

 the south about twenty years ago; their northward marrh was checked 

 for many years by the wire-netting fence erected alont:- portions of the 

 southern and western railwav lines; bevond tliis 1)arrier the ralibits did 



i. of 



Fig. 2.— Cockspur {Centaurea sohtitialis). 



not appear in plague form until the past few years. It is upon this area 

 that my oliservations were made. I was in a i)osition to study the flora 

 prior to the rabbit, and to view it after he had worked his sweet will upon 

 it. As regards the edible trees, the position is lamentable, thousands of 

 valiuible kurrajongs, leopard trees, orange buslies, wild lemon, and others 

 which had played their part in the sustenance of hundreds of thousands of 

 sheep throughout the 1902 drought and preceding droughty years, had 

 been ringed, and were dying without hope of recovery. The only redeem- 

 ing feature of this tree-ringing was the fact that the rabbit is partial to 

 l)udtha ; stock, generally speaking, will not eat it, and it is one of the 

 worst trees for the pastoralist to cope with in the improvement of the 

 countrv. Manv of tliese have been destroved. 



