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Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 107, 6 May 1916, Page 6

Reference to the attitude of the Government in "refusing to allow members of the Police Force to enlist was made by Senior-Sergt. Dart at Dunedin, in replying to expressions of •appreciation from Bench and Bar on the occasion of his leaving the force to enter the legal profession. The Government, he said (according, to. aDmiedin. exchange), had thought fit to prevent'members, so far as it could, from enlisting for service 'at the front. Members had felt this keenly, and he believed that the New Zealand Police Force stood almost alone among the Empire's police forces in this Government prohibition. Members 'of other police services had gone to the front, and had brought fame to themselves and added lustre and prestige to the service they had left. With all due respect to the Department, he felt that it had not acted wisely in refusing members the privilege of enlisting. Three young constables had left Dunedin quite recently, Constab'es Eckford, Sterritt, and Caven. r They felt they had to go, but they could not go with the Department's consent, and had, in fact, to go almost under the displeasure of the Department. He regretted that the Department had not made, it more easy for other men to go. ,

Some 40,000 young bluegums are being planted out for mining timber in the future for the. Kaitangata mine. The company at present pays £2000 a year for mining timber, and as timber becomes scarcer, will pay more. It is in order to meet this contingency that it is planting this strong and rapid-grow-ing timber.

A. number of important matters in connection witb Australian timbers, will be discussed at an Inter-State Conference of Ministers of Forestry to be held in Adelaide at the end of May. The Governor-General will preside. The New South Wales Minister for ■ Lands , and Forestry, Mr. Ashford, states that atthe conference an effort will be made to secure uniformity in the naming of Australian woods.. In different States the same tree is called by different names. Mr. Ashford is an.advocate for the use of colonial timber in preference to the imported article when the quality and price are about * equal. Imported Oregon is largely used in. the erection of houses, two features being its lightness and elasticity. There is a New South Wales timber that rivals it, namely, the mountain ash, which is just a trifle heavier, but which possesses greater resiliency. If this timber were grown in sufficient quantity in suitable districts in New South Wales, people would, Mr. Ashford believes, use it from -a patriotic, ami indeed an economic, standpoint. Again, .certain classes, of pine grow' to perfection in New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria. Each State has a pine of different degrees of softness, and in a scientific system of forestry there should be a certain area planted annually in each State,' so as to supply the market with a sufficiency of any particular kind of pine. The same thing, Mr.. Ashford says, would apply to other classes of timber". In the view of the Minister the deliberations of the conference should tend to promote the scientific treatment of forestry problems in Australia, where there has been great wastage in the past. Mr.. Ashford says that a forestry school will be established by the New South Wales Government,

There are a number of small tractors on the market to-day (writes a Minnesota correspondent of the Breeders' Gazette) that do not cost much more than one good team of heavy farm horses, and these same tractors are successfully doing the work of from six to eight horses at about one-third of.the cost. A Minnesota farmer thus states his recent experience: "I have cut grain with an Bft binder at the rate of 2 to 2^ acres an hour, at a cost of sd'to fid an acre, and I have ploughed 100 square rods per hour with a 14in two button plough at a cost of about Is an acre."

. Like those of most other countries, France's shipbuilding returns for , 1915 stand out poorly In the twelve months only 40,000 tons gross of merchant shipping was turned out of the yards as compared witb nearly 200,000 in 1914. War work and.the excessive cost of material is responsible.