viii INTRODUCTION. 



As long as a greater portion of this continent is devoted to depasturing 

 sheep and cattle and Australia intends to hold her own against the world in 

 the production of high-class wool, also in the matter of the frozen meat 

 export trade, it becomes of vital importance to the population that more 

 attention should be paid to the native forage plants and grasses than has 

 hitherto been the case and that some of them should be saved from exter- 

 mination by a proper system of conservation and even cultivation. There is 

 no gainsaying the fact that during the past twenty years or so large tracts 

 of country in the interior have been so overstocked and overrun with rabbits 

 and many valuable pasture plants have become so scarce that it would take 

 some years of careful conservation to bring many of them back to anything 

 like their original state. Being so closely fed down and often trampled 

 under foot the plants have little chance to recuperate, and their only natural 

 means of reproduction namely, by seed is also partially destroyed, and 

 every decade under present conditions will make matters worse. Moreover, 

 the paddocks being so constantly trampled upon are sometimes as hard as 

 the roads throughout the country. Under these circumstances it can hardly 

 be wondered at that some of the native grasses often present a harsh appear- 

 ance, and if it were not for the sharp points on many of their seeds some of 

 them would probably have been extinct long ago. These sharp-pointed seeds 

 naturally penetrate the earth and when rain falls to soften it they germinate, 

 and so the grasses are perpetuated in a sort of way. An occasionally good 

 season may to a slight extent remedy this, but observant and thoughtful 

 persons can see that in the near future more vigorous action will have to be 

 taken to keep the pastures up to something like their pristine condition or 

 the number of sheep and cattle will have to be considerably lessened, which 

 of course means the production of less marketable produce. It should also 

 be borne in mind that every fleece of wool which is produced takes a certain 

 amount of potash and other fertile substances out of the earth, and very 

 little so far has been done to restore these elements to the soil, except the 

 little that is returned in a natural way. 



Overstocking and the rabbit pest on certain pastoral areas in the interior 

 of this country have already had an injurious effect upon some of the natural 

 herbage. On such areas some of the more valuable plants have been so 

 persistently eaten down that they are gradually dying out. Nor is this all, 

 for many noxious weeds, both indigenous and exotic, bad grasses, and pine 

 scrub are gradually occupying their place. So plentiful, indeed, have some 

 of these pests become that laws have been directed towards their extermina- 

 tion. In certain parts of the interior the native " spear," " corkscrew," 

 " wire," and " three-awned spear " grasses, and also the " burr " weeds are 

 increasing. It is easy to account for the ever-widening area of their occu- 

 pation, because when old they are seldom or never eaten and are allowed to 

 seed at their own sweet will. The ground in many places being bare of 

 more nutritious herbage, the seeds of these noxious plants germinate readily 

 tinder ordinary conditions, and soon take possession of any unoccupied 

 land. Their dissemination in many parts of the country may be accounted 

 for by the fact that sheep and other animals will carry the " burrs " and 

 " spear-grass seeds " in their wool and often deposit them miles from the 

 jplants that bore them. I have recorded and published the names of over 

 200 exotic weeds that have become acclimatised in this country. All these, 

 of course, have not a prejudicial effect on wool or on the health of stock, 

 therefore I shall only list a few of the really bad ones. Should any persons 

 be desirous of consulting my published list of exotic weeds I would refer 

 them to the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales for 1890, vol. I, 

 page 303. 



