News Of The Day

Northern Advocate, 22 April 1939, Page 6

News Of The Day

Rugby Assists Recreation, “Rugby Unions are playing a very important part in the well being of the country, providing grounds and facilities and encouraging young people to develop physically,” said Mr L. J. Brake, president of the North Auckland Rugby Union. Mr Brake is also a member of the National Council of Physical Recreation and Sport. Dealing with the desirability of the North Auckland Union assisting with the purchase of grounds, Mr Brake said the sport would never progress as it should while footballers had to beg for grounds. • • • •

Football Finance. Figures to show that assembly and travelling expenses within the province were not unduly heavy, were quoted by Mr H. E. G. Smith, treasurer of the North Auckland Rugby Union, last night. On the New Zealand Maori trial match played at Whangarei last year, the net loss was £3B, while on the fixture ,at Otago, a similarly scattered district, the debit had been £251. The gate at Whangarei was £54, and at the North Otago match £54, but transport expenses were £6O here against £207, and hotel and general expenses £66, compared with £l6 for the southern match.

Hawk Versus Blow Flies On learning that acclimatisation 1 societies in New Zealand had put a price on hawks to encourage their destruction, a visiting English naturalist said that possibly sheepfarmers would live to regret the extermination of hawks. New Zealand appeared to be poor, he remarked, in scavengers, of which the hawks were the most important, cleaning up carcases which otherwise formed the breeding place of blowflies. After doing their best to exterminate carrion crows, which sometimes attacked the eyes of newborn lambs, or of ewes at lambing time, he said, the shepherds on the English moors noticed a big increase in the number of sheep that were flyblown, the flies having bred in carcases which, in the absence of scavengers, were left to decay. After that lesson in the intricacies of the balance of Nature, the shepherds now tolerated the carrion crows.

A consignment of high-class Dorset- \ horn stud sheep for Mr H. Besley, of V New Plymouth, is aboard the Awatea, | which is at present at Sydney. The | sheep were personally selected by the | purchaser from a prominent stud at | Wagga, New South Wales. |

Outstanding values at Henry Wil-i son’s —Pillow cases, 6id; 54in. sheets,? 6/6; 80in., 8/11 pair; coloured towels, | 1/11 pair; teatowels, 8d; Clydella, 3/6 1 yard; nursery squares. 6/6 dozen;? ladies’ wool vests, 2/11; interlockbloomers, 1/9; wool jumper suits, 25/-; f wool cardigans and jumpers from C/C,| and smart coats from 39/6. i

British Stock Expexts During 1937 British stock breeders shipped 251 head of pedigree battle valued at £84,110 and' 578 head of sheep valued at £11,784, to Argentina. Australia took 24 head of ckttle, and New Zealand only three, Argentina breeders want only the best stud stock and are prepared to pay for them, secure in the-knowledge that they can get prices for their progeny that will more than repay them financially-

Humorous Cockatoo. Beautiful though the Eglinton Valley is, it has one unfavourable aspect from the point of view of the motorist. This is Joey, the menace of Cascade Creek, who lurks among the tents and hutments of this little settlement. Motorists who stopped there and left their cars for any length of time frequently returned to find a tyre flat but no sign of a puncture. The setting of a watch discovered Joey. He is a large white cockatoo with a highly developed sense of humour. When unobserved he sidles monchalantly up to a motor car, grabs the valve of the tyre in his powerful beak, and pulls. The air hisses out of the tyre and Joey chuckles with raucous but appreciative merriment.

Struggling Railways The Canadian railways have beeh paying heavily in the past few years for their slowness to appreciate the serious challenge of \motor transport, said Mr. A. McCulloch, former chief engineer, of the Canadian Pacific Railways. For a number of years he was general superintendent of a part of the railways system in southern British Colurpbia, an area where the scattered population and the mountainous nature of the cbuntry give the railways almost complete mastery .in transport. In the prairies and eastern industrial districts,'he said, the results of road and rail competition make a different story. In. the competitive race trains are being speeded up, and the standard of service raised, to attract passengers and freights, but the railways are, in his opinion, involved in a most difficult struggle.