Untitled

Press, Issue 22599, 3 January 1939, Page 8

.An observant Canadian poultryman reports that hens are practically unperturbed by the roar of heavily -powered aircraft, but that they are terrified when hawk-like gliders hover overhead, their egg production suffering accordingly. His poultry farm is on the route of the Trans-Canada Air Lines, and demonstrations were recently held in his neighbourhood by some amateur gliders, so that he was in a position to report the reaction on his poultry by both types of aircraft.

Green peas, of which there was a shortage a week ago, are now in fairly plentiful supply in Invercargill and retail shops appear to be well stocked. Cauliflowers are still scarce and cabbages and cucumbers are not very plentiful. Tomatoes are firm in price, and good quality cherries are still bringing fairly high prices.

Officials at Rongotai aerodrome received a report by telephone on Saturday morning that one of the small local yachts from Paraparaumu Beach, sailed by two young men, accompanied by two young women, had capsized some distance from the shore, and because of the high wind some difficulty in rescuing them was anticipated. A request was made for an aeroplane to drop lifebelts. It is understood that the boat capsized not long after 11 a.m., and immediately the message was received at the airport motor-car tyre tubes were filled with air, and with lifebelts were loaded into the Wellington Aero Club’s Tiger Moth, which left for the area about noon, piloted by Flight Lieutenant I. E. Rawnsley, accompanied by Mr Guy Haddock, of the ground staff. However, when the machine reached the vicinity of the reported accident no sign of the boat or people was seen, but from signals received from people on the shore it was gathered that a rescue had already been made, and the aeroplane returned to Wellington. It was notified from Paraparaumu that the boat after capsizing had drifted about three miles with the four people clinging to it, before they were rescued by dinghies which set out from the Paraparaumu beach, after they had been in the water about an hour.

Engineers of the New Zealand Post Office have successfully adapted the principle of the mole drainage plough to the laying of cables underground. The device is used also to lay pipes for the Downlands water supply system m South Canterbury. In time the aerial line systems will give place to the underground cable, containing as many as 300 pairs of wires in the largest diameters used in the Dominion. To bury the cables along miles of country roads would formerly have involved long and tedious trenching, with considerable disturbance of the soil. However, the mole drainage plough, as adapted for post office use, makes for a quick job and leaves very little sign of it. At the Milson aerodrome, Palmerston North, nearly a mile of cable was laid at a depth of between 18 inches and 21 inches in five hours, by using the mole plough drawn by a tractor. It is estimated that the same work under the old trench-digging method would have required the employment of 50 or 60 men'. The job was done mechanically by a staff of eight.