Page 6 Advertisements Column 4

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25, 30 January 1912, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL On Tuesday,. 13th February, tho fourth wool sale of the season will be held in the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall, Wellington. A number of boroughs have neglected up to the present to notify the Labour Department as to the day of the wek on which they wish the half-holiday to bo observed within their boundaries. After the lOtll of next month the Minister of Labour is empowered to fix the halfholiday for such boroughs as neglect to do so before that date. Satisfactory progress is being made with the construction of the twentythree hordes for workers at Island Bay, and it is expected that some of th*o houses will be ready- for occupation in a fortnight. More applications have been received for workers homes at Is- j land Bay than the Government is able at present to satisfy with the land now at their disposal for this purpose in that locality. During the Wellington-Canterbury cricket match, Mfl L. M. leitt, M.P., presented Mr. W. Carlton with a purse, of sovereigns, publicly subscribed in recognition of the cricketer's performance in the Otago-Canterbury match. For a breach of the Wellington carpenters and joiners' award, the Evans Bay Timber Company was' fined dt!l by Dr. M'Arthur, S.M. in the Magistrate's Court to-day. Tho offence alleged against the defendants was that they employed J. Whitmore at carpentering work and paid him less than tho minimum wage prescribed by the award. Whitmore- was also charged with having accepted less than tho minimum wage. He was fined ss. Mr. Denis Carmouy, Inspector of Awards, represented the department. In view of the alarming prevalence of the Canadian thistle in many districts of Otago much interest (says the Otago Daily Times) is attached to any experiment which gives promise of revealing means of successfully dealing with this obstinate pest. The story of euch an experiment comes now from the Clutha district. Last year, in a paddock in which the thistles stood as thick as a crop of oats i just before they began to bloom a Clutha farmer tried the plan of sowing agricultural salt by a lime spreader lightly on the thistlas. He then put sheep on them. Attracted by tho salt the sheep attacked the thistles, Und, appearing to lose their dread of ( tho thorns, ate them right down to the ground. When they were afterwards sold off. the paddock the meat company's buyer declared them to ho the fattest sheep ho had bought in the district that season. If this experiment proves to work out successfully in other cases it is evident that a most useful discovery hnd i been mad«.