Siftings

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 12, 15 December 1933, Page 3

Siftings

Provide'd the necessary provision is made year by year, it is believed that the Singapore naval base will be completed by the end of 1939. The first Polled Hereford bull to be imported to the South Island arrived by the Waikawa last week from Canada. It was imported by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company to the order of Mr. A. S. Holms, of Waimahaka, Southland.

An average rise on last season’s prices of approximately 100 percent was recorded at the first Wellington wool sale of the present season last Thursday, and the sale was easily the best held in Wellington for at least four years.

There is a shortage of farm labour in the Opotiki district,, and farmers there are finding it difficult to carry on necessary seasonal work. At a meeting of his creditors, Mr, R. M. Morten, sheep farmer, of Canterbury, estimated that he had lost over £50,000 on the Nukutawhiti Estate in the Mangakahia district. British Council of Agriculture adopts report emphasising desperate plight of graziers and demanding Government action regulating Imperial and foreign supplies of meat. The export of gold in any amount from the Dominion, except with the specific permission of the Minister of Finance, is prohibited. The Customs department has been directed to see that no gold coin is taken out of New Zealand by passengers and others. A shipment of nearly 300 stud Corriedales and Romneys from Can-

terbury and Otago breeders left by the steamer Pakeha for Chile last week from Port Chalmers. The sheep were mostly hoggets and yearlings. It is estimated that up to 100,000 sheep, mostly breeding ewes, will be transferred during the next few months from the Poverty Bay district to the Waikato and Hawkes Bay. New Zealand, with a total annual export to Britain of 120,000 tons of butter, ships 1200 tons of secondgrade make, while Australia, with an export of 100,000 tons, sends 9000 graded below first-grade. Fruit shippers of Fiji sent a Christmas gift consisting of 151 cases of bananas, 65 cases of pineapples and 110 water melons by the Waipahi to Auckland last week for distribution among the unemployed in that city. Three purebred Guernsey cows are carried on board the Byrd Antarctic expedition steamer Jacob Ruppert for the purpose of supplying those on board with fresh milk. The cows were specially selected from pedigree farms in the United States. The cows are in charge of Mr. Edgar F. Cox, a farmer of Arcade, New York state, who devotes his whole time to looking after them.