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Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 90, 14 March 1935, Page 6

An apple tree in fall blossom for the second time this season is to be seen in a "'garden at Mt. Eden, Auckland. Steps are to he taken by tlie Wanganui City Council to improve tlie Wanganui airport so as to fit it for accommodation of fast, commercial craft which will be employed in the trunk air services.

The yield of exportable fruit this year from tlie orchard near Nelson run by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research for experimental work is estimated in a recent report to be in the vicinity of 4000 cases, or less than half of last year’s total output of 10,000 cases. Last year’s crop yielded a return of £IBOS. This year’s estimate will be in the vicinity of £750. Encouraged by the magnificent gifts of Lord Nuffield and Mr W. R. Wilson, of Auckland, toward the medical treatment of crippled children, the Te Awamutu Co-operative Dairy Company is making an appeal to dairy farmers for subscriptions for the endowment fund. Each supplier is being asked to contribute the sum of one penny per cow, the amount to be deducted from the monthly cheque. “The question of the superannuation rights of Mr Justice Frazer will be dealt with in a clause in a Bill to come forward before the session ends,” said the Prime Minister (Rt. Hon.’ G. W. Forbes) last evening. “In the meantime Mr Justice Frazer will continue as president of the Arbitration Court. It has yet to be decided when he will take up his duties as vicechairman of the Commission of Agriculture.” A warning to importers that the position created by arbitrarily raising the rate of exchange would have to be adjusted “some time,” and .that importers would be wise to build up a reserve against the depreciation of stocks which would result from the adjustment was given by Mr Hugh G. Thomson, chairman of the Auckland Importers’’ Association. “I feel that it should be represented to importers that it would be foolish to be lulled into a sense of false security simply because of the statement of the Reserve Bank issued some time ago that there would be no material change in the rate of exchange for a substantial period,” said Mr Thomson. Some little time ago Lord Wakefield presented to the Dominion a beautiful picture entitled “Carillon,” together with a number of duplicates of the original which were to be sold in aid of some soldiers’ organisation. By the famous artist, Will Longstaff, the painter of the well-known work, “Menin Gate,” his later effort of the brush depicts a scene at eventide when, at the sounding of the Carillon bell, the spirits of the soldiers who lie on foreign fields assemble in a ghostly company on a hillside overlooking the ■sea to listen to the bell ringing out in their homeland far away. The pictures are being sold in aid of the Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment League, and although it has not been found possible to bring the original, .which measures 10ft. by sft., to Palmerston North, a copy of it is at present on display in the windows of Messrs C. M. Ross Co., Ltd., in the Square,

A campaign to stimulate interest ' in a comprehensive scheme for the completion of the South Island Main Trunk railway was begun at Cheviot this week by Dr H. T. J. Thacker.

The view that the Mangahao dams were not worth stocking with fish food because the future showed no promise for angling in the dams was taken by the Wellington Acclimatisation Society last night.

The proposal recently considered by the Wellington Acclimatisation Society to establish a game breeding farm at Mnsterton was deferred by the society for 12 months at its meeting last night. In the meantime experimental breeding is to be carried out at Paraparaumu.

Dignified procedure was adopted this week to open the monthly meeting of the Wanganui City Council and is to be resorted to on future occasions. Councillors and members of the staff rose on the Mayor’s entry and remained standing while the town clerk read a prayer tor the city.

Taking advantage of the fact that there are at present no patients in the building, members of tne Palmerston North Hospital Board to-day inspected ■tewer wains in the infectious diseases block, which is being reconditioned before the winter. Inis block, in times of epidemic, hrs. accommodated as many as 85 patients. Believed to have been brought from the north in sheep droppings, a weed with large leaves similar to those of clover, but with a bulbous root, has been spreading rapidly in Palmerston North gardens. It has been identified as a wood sorrel or the oxalis family, thriving in loose soil and difficult to eradicate. The most effective remedy was stated to-day by a botanist to he “plenty of elbow grease, a good garden fork, and ample patience.” The ravages of dry weather and the diseases it has fost'ered have made forestry in Canterbury a far different proposition for the immediate future than it has been in the past, and extensive changes will have to be made in the policy of the Selwyn Plantations Board, which is faced with the most difficult year in its history. Throughout a large part of the area of reserves the. dry spell has killed thousands of trees, and in gum plantations beetles have killed many trees. Pleasure at the acceptance by the Government ot xlustralia of the Empire air mail scheme, ns reported in a cable message, was expressed by the Post-master-General (Hon. A. Hamilton) in a statement to the Press yesterday. “I have every hope,” the Minister said, “that we will have a twice-weekly service by air between New Zealand and Sydney early in 1937, and I have already concluded a> tentative arrangement between England, Australia, and New Zealand as to the cost of such a service.”

An accused person in the Magistrate’s Court at Christchurch the other day was trying to remember who, some time ago, had sentenced him to a term of imprisonment. Mr E. D. Mosley, S.M., refreshed accused’s memory. “Are you Mr Mosley?” asked accused, incredulously. “That’s my name,” replied the Magistrate. “Oh, you look much more genial this morning,” said accused, explaining why lie had not recognised the Magistrate. The Magistrate, the accused, and the Court enjoyed a hearty laugh. In Buenos Aires lately there has been an idea taking form aimed at stopping the war between Paraguay and Bolivia, said Mr J. Inman Emery, chief engineer for a group of British companies in Argentina, who arrived in Wellington yesterday by the Rangitane. He explained that it was now possible that there would be co-opera-tive action between Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Uruguay. “The two nations are just decimating each other and nothing is being gained; the territory itself that they are fighting for is hopelessly worthless,” Mr Emery said.