250 T'ransactions.— Botany. 
Many tracts of such country, as in the Wellington Province for example, 
are exclusively covered with forest, having a more or less dense undergrowth. 
Other such tracts are chiefly covered with fern, patches of forest and scrub 
occupying the gullies and valleys. Others again, chiefly on the eastern sides 
of both islands, are occupied by native grasses of more or less value for feeding 
purposes But whether the indigenous growth consists of forest, scrub, fern, 
or grass, the great aim of the European is to remove it, and to replace it with 
a vegetation which experience has taught him to look upon as the most 
enduring for pasture purposes, even though it may, in some respects, possess à 
less feeding value than the native growth. 
Amongst the ruder processes resorted to is that of periodically burning 
the indigenous growth, and scattering grass seed upon the bared soil, without 
any attempt to turn over the surface. This process has produced fair pastures 
in naturally loose soils, especially in the Provinces of the North Island. In 
the Wellington Province, however, the young grass is speedily overrun with a 
growth of Carduus lanceolatus, which maintains its position with more or less 
luxuriance for several years. But it has been found that the temporary 
inconvenience resulting from the presence of this thistle is more than com- 
pensated by the improvement it effects in the soil, and the greater luxuriance 
of growth in the grass after its disappearance. The grass, however, after 
having survived this first attack, is usually invaded by a much more powerful 
foe, the Hypocheris radicata, a plant common enough in England, but confined 
to waste places, and never attaining there the development which it has 
attained all over New Zealand. I have seen hundreds of acres of land which 
had been carefully laid down in English grass so completely overrun by this 
plant that it would have been difficult to discover a blade of grass amongst it, 
especially in dry weather. In the end, however, the strength of this new 
enemy becomes exhausted, and the grass again becomes master of the field. 
But new foes have lately appeared in Nelson and Canterbury, in the shape 
of the Malva sylvestris, which is most largely developed in Nelson, and the 
Achillea millefolium, which has chosen the pastures of Canterbury for its 
habitat. I observed lately in Nelson whole paddocks overrun with the 
mallow, which, unlike its predecessor the hawk-weed, is not eaten by any 
animal, and threatens seriously to interfere with the production of grass ; 
whilst in Canterbury I noticed the yarrow spreading in the grass fields, and 
completely displacing the grass wherever it grew. 
I might quote many other cases illustrative of the struggle which is going 
on between various species of introduced organisms for the ultimate occupation 
of the soil from which the indigenous vegetation has been removed by the 
more complete systems of culture; but, however interesting these may be, 
they are far less so than the attempt which Cassinia leptophylla is making to 
