Local and General.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 303, 11 December 1922, Page 4

Local and General.

Mr. Gilbert McKay, M.P., returns thanks to the Hawke’s Bay electors in this issue.

The Wairarapa District Poultry Farmers’ Association’s eggs are quoted at Is Id per dozen wholesale in Wellington. A large shoal of kingfish was seen reeeiitly M' , ar Tauranga. The fish were so thickly packed that sea birds wen* observed standing on the shoal. The lonic arrived in Wellington from London and Southampton yesterday morning. She brought 3.14 immigrants, of whom 14 arc for Napier. They are due by the mail train to-night. The shipping trouble is having its effect on the milling on the West Coast. About 2,000,000 feet of timber is awaiting shipment to Australia. Some of the local mills are closing down because skids are full, and there is no stacking room to go on cutting. The industrial difficulty which has all the effect of a strike, seems to be carrying a, good deal of loss and inconvenience in its train, and the district is not going to escape from the ecu sequences.

The cinematograph film depicting the Auckland Agricultural and Pastoral Association’s Spring Show has been completed for the Government, and in compliance with an agreement, (»ntere<l into with the Government the film will bo forwarded to Wellington this week and will then be dispatcher! to England for screening at the British Industries Fair to be held at Wembley Park in 1923. The film director reports favourably on the results obtained with the film and comments on the special study made of the champion beasts. Not only will the Christmas dinner be less expensive this year, but the substantial fall that has taken place in the price of toys and dolls assures more generously filled stockings than it has Been possible for Father Christfas to bring them of late years, remarks the “Wanganui Chronicle.” As indicating the magnitude of the drop in toy prices, the manager of one of the large shops in Wanganui stated that whereas last year it was impossible to sell anything worth buying under a couple of shillings, this year there would he quite a lot of attractive sixpenny ana shilling lines.

Mr. Herbert Smith, of Paeroa, claims that he has discovered a cure for potato blight. Mr. Smith, who called at the Star office, said the cure was simply wood ashes. “1 did not apply it as a cure for the blight,” said Mr. Smith, but as a fertiliser. What I used was ashes from ti-tree and New Zealand heather, which I had been burning. I sprinkled this freely over the plants and between the rows, and subsequently the blight disappeared' from all but two of my pinpts. 1 think any kind of wood ashes ought to l>e equally effective. My plants were very decidedly affected by the blight when I applied the wood ashes, and they are all right now. I may say that I had plenty of ashes nnd applied them freely.