Women Visit Town For Baths

Northern Advocate, 25 January 1939, Page 10

Women Visit Town For Baths

Many Northland farmers and residents in small townships, are reverting to primitive water-carrying methods. After several wet summers they are experiencing an unusually dry season as a result of which tanks .and, in some gases, wells, are dry. Such farmers and residents are now carrying out the time-old custom of gathering at the community water supply and carting jars of the precious fluid home in containers. The only difference is that the modern container is of galvanised l metal, while the old-world water-carrier used earthenware.

Shortage in Waipu. Waipu township is worried over its shortage, which has necessitated the carting of water from nearby pumps. In the Kamo Town Board area, water is a precious element, many residents having only .a meagre reserve in their tanks.

Most district farmers have a reasonable tank supply, but this in many cases has been drained, and wells are being brought into use to tide over the serious state of affairs. Meanwhile Whangarei residents use water for washing without reserve, and garden hoses and sprinklers may be seen in action every evening. Washing the Visitors. To those who live in the country, a trip to the town is becoming a regular affair, for it is only by encroaching on the generosity of town friends and relatives that the accustomed bath can be obtained. Even a cold sponge after a hard day’s work on the farm is being denied many settlers. Some cool down in creeks and pools. Even such reservoirs, however, are drying up, and are not as fresh as a few weeks ago. Washing Sent to Town, On the rural housewife the dry spell has brought great hardship, i

She can no longer plunge her arms into a tubful of frothy, , washingwater, but must use every pint of liquid over and over again. Clothes and dishes know no longer the joy of complete immersion. More than one housewife near Whangarei is sending her washing into town laundries owing to water shortage at her home. Rain Near, Yet Far. Several times in the past few weeks rain has hovered over the town and district. Auckland experienced showers this morning and indications are that they may spread to this district. No guarantee of rain, however, can be given, for, as on previous occasions, the rain clouds maylpass over the narrow Northland peninsula and go out to sea. Cider residents in the district can remember times when two or three months” dry weather have been recorded with devastating r effect on farm production.

Effect on Dairying. In the last few years, however, the summers have been characterised by ample rainfall, which has kept dairy production up to a high standard. The present dry spell, now in its fifth week, is the longest known for many years, and its effects are already being felt in dairying centres.