FOR DEFENCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 155, 29 December 1910, Page 8

FOR DEFENCE.

THE TRAINING CAME. The following staff has been appointed for duties at the Featherston training camp for officers and instructors, which will commence on 7th January :—Commandant, Lieut.-Col. Heard; AssistantCommandant, Major J. Hughes ; instruc tors,' Caistain R. O. Chesney and Captain J. E. Duignan ; Quartermaster, Captain H. 11. Browne; Gamp SergeantMajor, Sergeant-Major Eose; N. CO. Instructor, Sergeant-Major Henderson. Lieutenant-Colonel Bennett Stuart, D.5.0., will visit the camp from time to time. The training will be on Home lines, and officers and N. CO. '3 will be taught to instruct iv an interesting manner, so that when they are sent to the various areas they shall be able to take in hand the new recruits. The training will also aim at bringing officers and N.CO.'s Ito a' high standard of efficiency. The syllabus will be based on the subjects for promotion in "C" and "D," with ihe exception of history, which will not I be taught.

Mr. J. H. Timms, Wellington, who was secretary of the Special Committee set up by the Tramways Federation in connection with the Tramway Act, passed last session, is in Christchurch. Mr. Timms will probably meet the local union 'to discuss proposed awards,, and other items oi - interest to tramway employees. Stimulating soil and crops by electricity is still getting some study in England and other coiintries. Lecturing at Birmingham a few weeks ago, Sir Oliver Lodge said that of all the problems .vhich were receiving and yet awaiting attention the absorption of nitrogen by plant life was now one of the chief Questions which, acting in combination with what was already known, would powerfully affect the power of the British nation 10 feed itst'lf and to lessen the extraordinarily large amount oi imported food. Discoveries were ready to be made in the direction of the reclamation of barren soils, the influence of strong simnhiiie, and A heat upon soil in preparing it foi .seed, and the disinfecting of soil, d,nd thereby increasing its fertility. Thi3 ia^st procebs was undor-stood to destroy the opponents or devourers of useful and co-operating bacteria. The latter consequently multiplied to a prodigious extent, and the boil became tar more fertile than before. Another piob12111 ivai the •electrification of the air above the growing plant. Such i'lectrilication always existed, but by artificial means it could be intensified, the plant stimulated, and the action o[ feeble sunshine accelerated and assisted by high tension electricity purposely conveyed to tho atangppbeie above the giant..