RAHOTU.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1560, 25 February 1887, Page 2

RAHOTU.

(from a correspondent.)

The racing mania has taken possession of the natives around here, they having ploughed and harrowed down a course with the intention of endeavoring to arrange for a meeting about the 19th of March, immediately after the great annual Parihaka meeting and before r ttie natives disperse. Kahui is the leading man in the affair. They can make; a decent little course of three-quarters of r a mile, but they want the pakeha to join them in forming a committee to carry the thing through, as they are doubtful of their own abilities to do so. A meeting was called for Saturday evening last to form a mixed committee, but on account of the short notice given, the threatening state of the weather, and the small in* terest takeu in such matters, all. being combined, there were only one or -two pakehas present, consequently it only resulted in a long korero among the natives assembled without any business being done further than that I understood about £17 had been subscribed by natives alone. Meetings of this kind may have one good effect, viz., that of inducing the natives to get rid of a number of the useless weeds they now possess, and go in for breeding a better class of horses ; let us hope so at all events. A special meeting of the school committee was held on Friday evening, 18th instant, when it was decided to support Messrs Bauchope, Bluck, and Syme for seats on the Taranaki Education Board.

I see by the Auckland Weekly News that the poor sparrows are blamed for the light crops, but in my opinion bad tillage has a good deal to answer for. We know the small birds are bad enough, but don't let us cast the burden of oar own sins on their poor unprotected heads. It is a great pity such pests should ever have been introduced into the colony, but I really am not sure they are any worse than the innumerable other pests with which we are troubled in the shape of insects of every mentionable and unmentionable kind. There is scarcely a garden that I know of in the district which has been able to grow a bit of green stun" for some time past on account of these same pests. No sooner does a green leaf appeal above the surface than it is at once destroyed. Can any one of your numerous correspondents or readers suggest an effectual remedy ?