WHAREROA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 30 January 1926, Page 16

WHAREROA.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) Splendid rains have fallen recently, transrorming' the brown pastures to verdant green and practically ensuring ample, feed for the remainder of the summer. The welcome moisture, coupled with the heat of the soil, has induced a premature crop of mushrooms on the pasture lands. As a rule these delicacies do not appear till about March, but this season lias been an abnormal one in many ways wltn TroaM and hail in November, and practically a drought in December. Last September also will long be remembered as one of the most hitter periods ever experienced in South Taranaki. Just at present we are enjoying ideal summer weather, with frequent showers followed by brilliant- sunshine, and when our climate is on its best behaviour Italy has few points on us. Several hedgehogs have recently been seen in this locality, and- there is ample evidence to convict these small rodents of the destruction of eggs and the slaughter of chickens. It only now requires some romantic patriot to intioduce a healthy family of snakes to the countrv, and thus break down the immunity which this land (in conjunction with Ireland. Malta and Iceland) has hitherto enjoved as one of the few places on earth where no serpents roam or wriggle. I have never noticed the little orange-coloured bettle with the nine spots on her back (and known as the ladybird) to he so plentiful as during this season, and perhaps that fact accounts for the absence of blight on the potato, onion, tomato and other plants, as these insects are known, to- be active enemies of some forms of blight. n the other hand, the bronze or grass beetle, which should be flying now, appears to be unusually s-caie, and peiliaps this portends a mitigation of the grass grub scourge during the coming winter. There is a vast difference between the acbiivties of these two varieties of coleoptera, one being wholly beneficent and the otliei alto o-etlier maleficent. \t intervals along the scarred tac-e of* the seashore from the Manawapcm to the Waingongoro, and possibly tillther, so far as I know, may be aoea blooming a brilliant variety of i anRaukawa break upon the iron sand shore gold. Here, where the long rollers ot with hollow boom, and the papa cliffs shake to the thunder of the singe., thi. hardy golden bloom braves the storm and the spray, the wind and the rain, adhering to the bare face of the papa, and disputing place with the hardiest shrubs and grasses, I am not sufficiently versed in botany to know whether this brilliant interloper is a native or introduced, but 1 think probable the latter, and 1 if so its existence and; spread in this exposed position is a- matter of continuous wonder It seems identical with- the oi-din-arv French marigold of our gardens, and several householders here h.ue transplanted it successfully. A nasty variety of sickness,_ piobublv a foi-in of summer cholera, is prevalent now in this locality, one household having had six members <l°" n * mice The ailment makes the mit fore,' extremely weak, as there is a distaste for food, accompanied by a . i.i of oncvc'v. Several of oui milking sheds have been sadly depleted of wooers by HiD ,is;tation winch usually runs a coarse ot «”.e-. l tlajs, and leaves the suffere.- weak and thin.