NORTHERN WAIROA.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 145, 18 June 1912, Page 9

NORTHERN WAIROA.

Mr. J. R. MeXaught has been elected secretary to the Hobson'Acclimatisation Society, which is seriously contemplating the establishment of a bird-farm. The results attending its distribution of trout in the various streams are not altogether encouraging, and there seems to be a swinging of opinion to feathers versus fish. There are large areas in the district indigenous to the feathered tribe. At the last meeting of the Otamatea County Council the majority of members expressed themselves as being in favour of the rating on unimproved values superseding the present system of rating on the capital value. An actual decision to take a poll on the question was deferred for fuller consideration. There is a. decided tendency on the part of local farmers to develop their milking herds, both in the direction of qualify and quantity. Mr. Downs, manag.r of the Dairy Co.. is making strenuous efforts to get a cow-testing association formed. He has made a number of demonstrations showing farmers that through not knowing their cows their results are far short of what they might be, with much less labour and expense.