Cotton Growing in Australia.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 12 March 1920, Page 4

Cotton Growing in Australia.

The question as to what steps should be taken to develop the cultivation of cotton in Australia has been carefully considered, and a recommendation that the Commonwealth should guarantee a price of 4d per lb for a»ed cotton grown in 1920 has been approved, says th« journal of the Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry. Stepi have been taken to obtain for experimental purposes from the United States of America, the West Indies, and Egypt samples of cotton seed free from insect p»sts and antbraenose or bacterial blight.

The leaves and twigs of the ordinary weeping willow have come to be highly appreciated as fodder for starving in many parts of South Africa. An analysis shows that the leaves compare favourably with lucerne in food value; The conclusion of arrangements for naxt year's supply of BUfar for the Dominion was announced by the Prime Minister last week. An agreement has been arranged with the Colonial Sugar Company, which has not yet been signed. However the terms of the arrangement ensure the supply of sugar for New Zealand for twelve months from June 30th, which was the date to which the previous agreements, which had been due to expire on March Ist, had been extended.

During the war we thought we had the laugh at South Africa because that country did not come into the wool pool, and'had difficulty in shipping its product. However, the old Baying is stili good: "Ha laughs best who laughs last." In South Africa recently super combing wool was selling at 57Jd, ordinary wool at 45£ d, Romney at 36d. The British Government does not go "halves" in these profits in excess of the 15£ d.

There seldom has baen such • crop of turnips, in Southland as the present season, everything having bean favourable to a splendid growth of winter feed. Conditions thus differ from those of last year when the supply was limited owing to the unfavourable season. One who travels about the country a goo 1 deal was much impressed with what he recently saw in the Fortrose district, the turnip 3 and grass fields looking their best. In fact he described nothing better anywhere else. Perhaps one of the most extraordinary discoveries in regard to plants is that they~ are conscious of wireless messages.- Experts who have been experimenting in the matter declare that plants receive and make a response to wireless messages, aiid that the response can b» detected by the newer electrical instrument. The latter are so sensitive that they can detect and register the minutest internal movements in plants.