TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF THE 



CEYLON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XXXIV, COLOMBO, JANUARY 15th, 1910. No. 1. 



Review. 



THE WEEDS, POISON PLANTS, 

 AND NATURALIZED ALIENS OF 

 VICTORIA. 



BY A. J. EWART, D.SC, PH.D., F.L.S., 



assisted by J. R. Tovey. 

 (pp. 100 and 33 coloured plates, 

 Melbourne, 1909). 



A description in popular language ac- 

 companied by coloured plates of the 

 weeds and deleterious plants of an agri- 

 cultural country is one of the most 

 useful works which could be put into 

 the hands of farmers and planters. In 

 Victoria such a volume is rendered speci- 

 ally necessary by the existence of legis- 

 lative enactments enforcing penalties 

 upon farmers who do not carry out the 

 prescribed measures for the eradication 

 of proclaimed pests. The coloured 

 figures of these pests have already been 

 published serially in the Journal of the 

 Agricultural Department of Victoria. 

 The plates and published descriptions 

 are now collected into one volume which 

 is rendered more complete by a full 

 account of the properties and best modes 

 of treatment of all the commoner weeds 

 of the country, to which is added a 

 complete list of all the naturalized 

 aliens and introduced exotics. An intro- 

 ductory section of twelve closely printed 

 pages deals in an able and interesting 



fashion with the factors which influence 

 the spread of weeds and with the best 

 methods for their suppression. 



Space only allows of our selecting for 

 quotation two brief passages which can- 

 not be taken too seriously to heart by 

 all planters and agriculturists of what- 

 ever country. 



"No point is more important to the 

 settler on forest land than that he 

 should clear no more land at a time than 

 he can keep clear and free from weeds. 

 Any slackness in this respect soon re- 

 duces the land to a condition which, 

 from the point of view of cultivation, is 

 as bad as, or even worse than, when it 

 was under forest." 



And on page 7 : " It is not too much to 

 say that no new plant should be intro- 

 duced into this State, and not even in a 

 private garden, if there is any chance of 

 its spreading, unless an official report of 

 its capacities for good and evil has been 

 obtained, and unless the report is a 

 favourable one." 



The descriptions of plants which 

 occupy the bulk of the book are written 

 in popular language, and the meanings 

 of the few technical expressions used 

 are explained in a short glossary. The 

 author is to be congratulated on having 

 produced an admirable model of what 

 such a book should be. 



R, H, Li 



