102 



It is a matter for congratulation that the plant is already established under 

 cultivation, as the specimens found at the Taranga Islands grow in situations 

 where they are peculiarly Open to destruction. 



The Maoris at Chora stated that they, some years hack, planted a young 

 tree on one of the Fanal Islands, which is still living although it has grown 

 but little. 



Art. XVII. — On Grasses and other Plants adapted for pasturage in the 

 Province of Auckland, especially with regard to indigenous kinds. 

 By T. Kirk. 



[Head before the Auckland Institute, August 16, 1869.] 



So few kinds of grasses have yet been made subservient to pastoral purposes in 

 this province, that a difficulty presents itself at the outset, not in finding kinds 

 likely to prove of permanent value, but in making a judicious selection from those 

 of proved value in other countries, and from those which are truly indigenous to 

 the colony. Rye-grasses (Lolium perenne and L. italicumj, meadow-grass {Poa 

 pratensis), timothy fPhleum pratense), roTind cocksfoot (Dactylis glornerata), 

 sweet- vernal ( Anthoxanthum odoratum), with the common red and white 

 clovers (Trifolium pratense and^Z 7 . repensjhx variety, comprise the kinds usually 

 cultivated. The black medick, spotted mecliek, and toothed medick ( Medicago 

 lupulina, M. maculata, and M. denticidata), which afford such an abundance 

 of grateful food on some of our volcanic hills and waste places ; the dogs-tail 

 ( ' Oynosurus cristatus), the common bent grass ( Agrostis vulgaris), the soft 

 brome grass (Bromus mollis), and others naturalized in many places do not 

 appear to have attracted the attention of the agriculturist, although amongst 

 the commonest of cultivated grasses in Europe. Nor have the available 

 native grasses been brought under cultivation, notwithstanding the avidity 

 with which certain kinds are sought after by cattle, a fact which ought, long 

 ere this, to have drawn attention to their cixitural value, the more especially 

 from their being less subject to the attacks of caterpillar than most of the 

 introduced kinds. Still less has any attention been paid to the many 

 valuable plants possessing condimental properties, stimulant and aromatic, 

 such as the burnet ( Sanguisorba officinalis), burnet saxifrage ( Pimpinella 

 Saxifraga), stone parsley ( Petroselinum segetum), fenugreek (Trigonella 

 Pcenitm-Grcemm), yarrow (Achilloea millefolium), which form so large a 

 portion of nearly all natural pastures, and which are so eagerly devoured by 

 all kinds of cattle. But, in truth, the attention of the most advanced 

 agriculturists has been directed too exclusively to grasses and clovers as 

 pasturage plants, and it is mainly owing to the ravages of the terrible rinder- 

 pest, which has caused greater attention to be turned, amongst other things, to 

 the green food of cattle, that these condimental plants have been brought into 

 prominent notice. 



If we examine a piece of natural pasture, such as the sheep-downs of the 

 south of England, we find a close compact growth of various fine-leaved sheeps' 

 fescue grasses, small-growing meadow-grasses, bent-grasses, dogs-tail grass, with 

 numerous small trefoils, and medicks, and especially, with dwarfed plants of 

 burnet-saxifrage, stone-parsley, yarrow, and other stimulant or aromatic plants, 

 which furnishing an agreeable variety to the sheep feeding upon them, are 

 greedily sought after. In richer lands the small sheep-fescues, and meadow- 

 grasses, are replaced by the various meadow-fescues, and the larger meadow 

 grasses, with foxtail, catstail, red and white clovers, black and spotted 

 medicks, cowparsley, mayweed, burnett, and others. The grasses are rarely 

 found alone. Even in the natural pasture of the southern parts of New 



