MEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11691, 28 June 1901, Page 6

MEWS IN BRIEF.

A Suez mail arrives on Monday. The Taviuni and Hauroto are due from the Islands. The Waihora is due from the South this j morning. South Australia's stamp duties for the past year produced £28,226. The Melanesian Mission yacht Southern Cross arrived from the Islands yesterday._ The Agricultural Department has now 30 highly-qualified veterinary surgeons in its service. A grand national land purchase scheme is to be submitted by Mr. King O'Malley j to the Federal Parliament, i It is reported that an outbreak of typhoid ! fever las occurred at Waitara, some five per- | sons having been att'icked. i The fate of the old Nelson tramway has been tonally sealed, the City Council having definitely decided to pull up the line. Fifty'thousand feet of timber and 12,000 yards of fabric were u.ed in the decoration of Government Buildings in Wellington. The Government schooner Countess of Ranfurly, for the Cook Island trade, arrived from Whangaroa yesterday to complete her outfit. The Chief Justice of Victoria has commented severely upon the number of wife desertion cases" which have lately appeared in the law courts. Arrangements are being made by the Evangelical Council to formulate a scheme for a simultaneous evangelical mission throughout Sydney. A man named Isaac Hymau. was fined £100 at Melbourne on a charge of having goods in his possession on which Customs duty had not been paid. The Taruiaki County Council are about to erect a new bridge at the Ngatoronui stream, Mountain Road. The structure, which is to be of ironbark, will be a substantial one. A petition is in circulation amongst the business people of Masterton recommending ; that the business places be closed at nine o'clock instead of ten o'clock on Saturday evenings. This" week the sum of £1300 will be paid out by the Greytown Co-operative Dairy Company to its milk suppliers, This is in addition tf- the amount advanced each month during the season. The members of the Undertakers' Assistants' Association in Melbourne are urging that cemeteries should be closed on Sundays, so as to afford them " the unknown pleasure of a six-days' week.' The Hawke's Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society decided at its annual meeting to hold an autumn show next year, with a view to attracting small farmers. The affairs of the society were shown to be in a flourishing condition. 'There is an abundance of green feed this season in the lhuraua Valley, and the settlers are unable to keep it down. One settler had 1100 ewes grazing in a 300-acre paddock, and the ewes maintained a splendid condition. The Mount Ida Chronicle reports that Mr. C. J. Inde'- lost a valuable draught mare last week under rather peculiar circumstances. It happened to lie down on some broken glass, and when found its entrails were protruding. He had recently refused £50 for the animal. An extraordinary fatalitv occurred outside | the Weld Arms Hotel. Perth, on the 10th inst., when William Berryman, a young man, was accidentally shot. He was driving into the hotel yard, holding a loaded gun between his knees. The charge exploded, and the shot entered Berryman's body below the heart. He died in less than three hours. There is very little water in the Pareora River hist now (says the Timaru Herald), and gulls rnd hawks are having great sport among the young trout. On Saturday morning last a hawk was seen in the act of taking trout. He perched on a rock in the gorge quite close to a shallow ripple, and as the trout came close to him he struck more deadly than a human fly-fisher, and flew away" to the nearest spur of the range adjoining to enjoy his catch. Returns of a" splendid potato crop are to hand from the farm of Mr. William Brash, Mataura Island (says the Wyndham Farmer), From one and a-half acres'(actual measurement) have been this year taken no less than 350 sacks of potatoes," weighing 29 tons. Of these. 300 sacks (25 tons) were first-class marketable potatoes, and 50 sack's (four tons) pig-feeding sorts. The soil on which these tubers were grown was bush land, stumped and ploughed deep, and worked with a disc harrow : no manure. The present season, so far. has been one of the best experienced for many years for eating off turnips (says the CI nth a. Leader). In some fields in the vicinity of Stirling we s notice the farmers are turning over the tur- j nips with the plough, practically covering them with the mould. This is somewhat in the nature of an experiment, but it is said that stock thrive best when the turnips are turned over and covered in this way for some time before eating, off. Turnip feeding is very scarce this year.