NORTH OTAGO NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 22963, 21 May 1938, Page 11

NORTH OTAGO NOTES

(From Our Oamaru Correspondent.) YOUNG FARMERS’ SCHOOL. At the Young Farmers’ School at Waitaki Boys’ High School yesterday, Mr C. V. Dayus, M.R.0.V.8. (district superintendent, Department of Agriculture) gave a lantern lecture on stock diseases. Referring to foot-and-mouth disease, he said it could hardly be brought into New Zealand by live animals that did not have the disease, but there could be infection from skins and hides. Cases had occurred in England, traceable to hides imported irom Argentina. In another series of slides, Mr Dayus described the effects on stock of iodine deficiency. There wore some iodine deficient soils in Otago, particularly in the Wanaka and Clutha valley areas. Yesterday morning the young farmers paid a visit to Messrs Darling and M'Dowoll’s grain store, where Mr H. B. M’Dowell described the grass seed and grain cleaning and dusting plants and crushing and grinding machinery. MR WEBB AT DUNTBOON. In answer to Mr J. S. Adams at Duntroon on Thursday night, when the matter of an irrigation scheme for North Otago was mentioned, the Hon. P. C. Webb said the Government believed in irrigation, and _ already had 500 men employed on irrigation works, He said one season’s drought some year’s ago cost Canterbury more than the £300,000 being spent on the Rangitata scheme. Irrigation would give young people an incentive to stay on the farms. Referring to access to backblocks farms, he said that when the Government took office 13,000 farmers were without adequate access, and 6,000 miles of roads were needed. The Government had constructed 1,500 miles of these. He supported a guaranteed price for wheat and the provision of electricity for the backblocks settler. He also dealt with State enterprise, contending that the Public Trust Office and the State Fire Office were examples of what could be done. The housing 'Scheme and Onakaka steel works would be of great value to the Dominion. GENERAL. After over a week of warm, sunny days, the weather in Oamaru yesterday changed, and was decidedly chilly. The new overbridge across the railway at Waianakarua on the main south road was opened for traffic on Wednesday. A bring and buy sale, held by the Newborough Ladies’ Guild, _ added a satisfactory sum to the guild funds. The stallholders were Mesdames Forrest, Holland, A. Mays, Newson, Rankin, Brook, Kilgour, Maclntyre, Hughes, Shanahan, Ure, and Williams, and Miss Hughes. Mesdames Keith and Poole contributed songs. The late Mr F. S. Graham, whose death occurred at Gore on Monday, was at one time a member of the Oamaru Garrison Band and played the Eb bass in the band that visited Melbourne in 1898. . Writing from Budapest to a friend in Oamaru, Mr H. B. Burton refers to his visit to Vienna, 12 hours after the plebiscite was taken. He says every hospitality was shown him, and contradicts the comments in English papers as to the lack of courtesy displayed by Austrians to foreign , tourists. The Austrians, except the Jews, _ greatly favoured the amalgamation with Germany, and Herr Hitler was a popular idol.