Page 1 Advertisements Column 4

Feilding Star, Volume II, Issue 530, 25 March 1908, Page 1

! NEWS FROM EVERYWHERI ( ITEMS GARNERED FROM OUII EXCHANGES. It is announced from St. Petersbui that the Tsaritsa's stato of inindgiv< riso to grave apprehensione. TI Tsaritsa is suffering from hallucin: j tions and is troubled with insomni: , The doctors adviso her to leavo fc Italy or tho Riviera, hut she per6Js . ently refuses to leave tho Tsar, wh Ij she thinks is in danger. , Mr J. E. Barrett tho Governmen nurseryman at Waerenga, is th author of an illustrated bulletin jus issued by the Department on "Shelte , Planting," with special reference t ; the acacia and eucalyptus families an their raising. When the blight swep over the Southern districts ,and mad i gum trees a thing to be avoided, nur i serymen, it is said, stopped propagat . ing gums to any extent, and the sun plies of young trees are now scarce The blight has now been conquered b; tho ladybird, and the bulletin now is . sued tells farmers how to raise thei: own trees from seed. Gum trees an valuable for shelter and for genera farm timber. Timber may bo scarci somo day. A New Zealand engineering gradu ato has just visited the University o: j London. In a letter to a friend Ik I records hi6 impressions thus: — "In or. j dor to remind myself of what I was out for I went to tho University oi I London, and was shown over th« j Sohool of Engineering. Here I was j rather startled by being asked whoI ther New Zealand is not a suburb o\ ■ Sydney. The school itself was year; behind our own Canterbury College. The staff points with pride to antiquated testing apparatus, now worn out, on which past resea relies have been made. Besides the equipment being considerably inferior to our own, tho course itself was far easier." i Mme. Ruski, widow of a Russian captain who was killed at Port Arthur, is bringing a civil action against Mme. Stoessel, tho wife of the general of that name, to recover £200. She left Port Arthur on the death of her husband, and states that she presented her two cows to Mme. Stoessel on the understanding that the milk should bo given to tho sick and wounded. Mme. Ruski now alleges that Mme. Stoessel sold the milk for her own profit at 2s a bottle, and on tho day before the capitulation offered tho animals for sale to a tradesman named Suvoroff. Tho tradesman refused to mako a bargain with her, as ho suspected that surrender was imminent. * j A Scottish tourist, wandering about j Paris, found himself in a strange neighbourhood, and he failed, through j ignorance of the language, to get anyJ one to guide him homeward. Then a : happy thought struck him. By dint : of signs he concluded a bargain with ! a fruit hawker for a basketful oi ! gooseberries, and to tho amazement I of everybody he went about shouting , "rTino Scotoh grossetsl A penny a i pun !" This went on for a while, till a fellow countryman rushed forward, and seizing him by the shoulder, asked, "Man, d'ye think y'ere in the streets of Glesca, that ye gang about iliko a madman crying grossets?" "Ecb," .he replied with relief, "ye'ro just the man I was looking for. D'ye ken the way to the Blanc Hotel?" For audacity and grim humour tlie method of raising money used by the porters of a certain great market claims a foremost piace, says the London Evening Standard. A man well known among those who load and unload the wares of the market suddenly disappears. His fellows call, during the morning, sad-visaged and doleful, upon tho men with money. "Poro old 's dead, sir," they say, "and we're just collectin' a bit of money to give him a decent funeral." It would bo a breach of the immutable laws of the game olosely to inquire into 'tho affair. Next day there may be a slight shortage of porters. On tho following day they will all be back in their places, and tho most active is certain to bo the "corpse." Hulloa ! thought you were dead," says the contributors to his funeral fund. "Yus, I just died to give the boys a bit of a beano," is the answer. There have been more resurrections in this market than all the rest of tho world can show. Professor Bottomley recently revealed a mystery whioh he has been nursing for many months (says the London Daily Mail). It has been generally held for nearly twenty years tliat tho growth of plants deponds largely on the presence of bacteria, somo in tlie soil and somo on the roots. They are of many sorts. Tho most mysterious group has the power of extracting free nitrogen from the air and transferring this essential substance to clovers, beans, and other leguminous plants. A special colony of these have been under the microscope in King's College for six months and the first photograph has been shown by Professor Bottomley. Tho bacteria, after years of enquiry, have been actually and visibly harnessed to a new work". Professor Bottomley is the first man to have attached these "nitrogen-fixers" to plants which are not leguminous. By watering the roots or seeds of tomatoes, strawberries, wheat, barley, and oats with bacteria solution Jie has increased their growth by something like a third. It is yet more important that the maturity is immensely accelerated. The Hamburg-America Company's steamer Fuerst Bismarck had an encounter with a whale in the Bay oi Biscay recently. As the boat was approaching Corunna, away in the distance was 6een what was at hist thought to be a waterspout. A little later it was realised that it was a whalo disporting itself. The appearance on the scene of the liner was evidently resented by the whale, which headed straight for the starboard side of the vessel. Before the captain could manoeuvre to foil the whale, it charged the kner with terrific force, making the ship shiver from stem to stern. The big steamship, however, was proof against the shock, which would have sunk a small vessel. To the whale, the coiisequences ot the collision were serious. The captain o the steamer Reggio, which arrived al Plymouth ihree or four days later, re. ported that when about a mile west from Hartland Point, the carcase ot a large whale was passed- It was i 14011 in length, and rose nine feet out ol the water. It was reported as sen. ously dangerous to navigation. THE PRIZE ADVERTISEMENT. Some doctors spend a lifetime In hunting after gfrms, And by the time they've killed em, They've grown aa big as worms! Microbes would bid adieu to eartn— Chest troubles **pld be fewerLife would be gay— if everyone Took Universal Cold Cure. One guinea has been posted to Mwi LB., Belvedere Road, Carterton. Each week a Guinea is awarded to: the best original conundrum, ap essay, or humoroua verse oi thi merits of THE UNIVERSAL COLI CURBContributions must not exceed nro f words ; must be acoompanied b; i coupon and be addressed: "Umverss f Cold Cure— The Latest and Beßtl P.O. Box 716, Wellington." Stores and Chemists, ls 6d amd 2