unable to distinguish the poisonous plants from the harmless ones; their sheep and cattle died, and it was evident that the losses were caused by injurious food of some description; but several years elapsed, and much careful inquiry was needed, before the true authors of the mischief could be identified. The settlers owe a debt of gratitude to the late Mr. Drummond, the well-known colonial botanist, for his careful researches and accurate experiments by which the injurious plants were at length discovered, and the best means of destroying them were pointed out.
The most deadly of these plants are of the gastralobrum tribe, and in cases where a large extent of country is infested by them the land is useless for all pastoral purposes. Horses do not seem to suffer, though, as I have already said, a few cases are on record in which they too have perished from feeding upon the "poison," the term always used in the colony to express the existence of any or all of these deleterious plants. "There is poison upon that run"—"the sheep have been among the poison"—and similar expressions are constantly in use. If, however, the "poison" is not prevalent over the whole extent of the country, but only scattered thinly over certain parts of it, it is possible to extirpate it in the course of two or three years by care and watchfulness, while, in the meantime, an intelligent shepherd may succeed in preventing his flock from frequenting the dangerous parts of the run.
In other cases, where the plants are confined to a few localities only, but too plentiful on those spots to allow of total eradication, the evil may be partly combated by
