Pond. — On the Sugar Values of Beet-roots. 365 



to compete against a hardy indigenous vegetation, its increase has certainly 

 been rapid, especially within the last two years. It now forms a dense mass 

 sixty yards in circumference ; the intermediate vegetation, Leptospermum, 

 Pteris, and Pomaderris, is almost completely destroyed. From the main 

 mass seeds are being disseminated in a line with the prevailing winds. 



Probably the reason that E. microphylla has become so firmly established 

 in its new habitat is that when the seeds (or seed) fell they met with favour- 

 able conditions ; that is, they germinated in a moist loamy hollow, and 

 being unpalatable to all kinds of stock escaped destruction. 



As to how it was introduced, I can only satisfactorily account for it on 

 the hypothesis that the seeds were carried over from Australia by aerial 

 currents ; it is not improbable that was the way E. purpurascens (discovered 

 nearly forty years ago by the late Dr. Sinclair) reached Manurewa, four 

 miles N.E. of the present station of E. microphylla. Upwards of 1,300 

 miles may seem an enormous distance for seeds to be transported across 

 the sea, independent of oceanic currents ; and I would have hesitated in 

 asserting that that was the way E. microjohylla was introduced, only that I 

 cannot account for its having reached so isolated a district except by natural 

 means. 



It may be of interest to mention that there are two plants of E. pur- 

 purascens established on the southern side of the river Pahurehure, about 

 5 and 7 miles southwest of Manurewa. 



Art. LIII. — On the Sugar Values of Beet-roots groivn in the Waikato District. 



By J. A. Pond. 

 [Read before the Auckland Institute, 5th September, 1881.] 

 During the session of 1880 a paper was read before this Institute entitled 

 " On the growth of Sugar-beet in New Zealand," by Dr. S. M. Curl.* In 

 this paper the writer very ably reviewed the subject and placed much 

 valuable data before us, but when speaking of the values of sugar in the 

 different varieties of beetroot examined by him, he claimed to have found 

 as high as 17*5 per cent. This excessive amount, and the fact that Parlia- 

 mentary Papers had been published giving analysis of New Zealand grown 

 beets, showing much less favourable results, and the absence of any details 

 of examination, led me to take up this subject with the view of practical 

 operations should the experiments justify it. About this period also, I had 

 interested myself in the matter of sugar-beet, owing to some superior seed 

 having been brought from Hamburgh by Mr. G. S. Graham, and finding 

 it had been distributed amongst some of the Waikato settlers for planting. 



Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iii., art. xii. 



