NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12546, 13 April 1904, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Sonoma left for Sydney. • Zealandia left for the South. lndra due from London and Australia next ■■ week. Tainui due from the Eastern Pacific tomorrow. A movement is on foot in Christchurcli to establish a New Zealand Referendum ■ League. ■ . The Railway Superannuation Fund Board lias just granted 35 members of the railway service retiring allowances totalling £2069 lis 7d. The new theatre that is being erected at Gisborne will seat 1000 persons, and is to cost £4000. The building is to be completed in August. The Invercargill News says that -a Chinaman in Central Otago estimates that he will make » net profit of £3000 from his fruit farm of 14 acres this season. On one watei-fringed patch of dairy land •during the recent floods, a Mataura Island (Otago) farmer gave the coup tie grace to no less than 60S rabbits in three days. Since the Dunedin electrical cars have been running, says the Otago Daily Times, 1,280.000 passengers have been carried. During that time the cars have covered 116,600 miles. . As an evidence ox the eccentricities of the Season, it is stated by the Hawke's Bay Herald that strawberries at Tikokino are in ' full blossom and ripe, and plum-trees are in . flower.

■ "Many farmers in the Ash burton district have stopped threshing owing to the low price of grain, and because' they expect the quotations to rise. Several threshing mills are idle. ' - Winter has set in early in the Nelson district. Last Saturday morning quite a sharp frost was experienced in the neighbourhood of Wakefield, many paddocks being quite , white at sunrise. At a clearing sale at Ashburton last week : draught horses" sold at record prices. A bay gelding brought £67, a mare with foal at foot £92. and a draught mare by Kelvin (eight- years old) £101. A representative of Messrs. »T. E. Nathan, cf Wellington, is visiting Taranaki with the object of purchasing the milk supply of several large factories in connection with a process for converting milk into a powder. A court, of Foresters is to be opened at Awanui North. The executive officers of the Auckland district are leaving by the ; Muritai on Sunday to officiate at the opening of the court, which is to be called Court Pride of Awanui. The recent floods in South Westland have eansed great loss to shipowners. Dead sheep were thrown up all along the sea beach, and in many places the rivers entirely changed their courses, and washed away large quantities of grazing land. The severe frost experienced in the Templetou district last week blackened most of the potato tops in the district, and it is anticipated that the growth will be stopped to such an extent that the average yield will . be reduced bv two or three tons. Chief Stock Inspector Miller, of Hawke's Bay, has just paid a visit to the northern part of Poverty Bay. Ha found pasture everywhere phenomenally abundant, but fears that the season will be a bad one for hoggets, owing to so much wet weather. Not for many years (says the Free Press) has there been "such an influx of harvest bands into the Clutha district. Usually the ' cry is that there are not enough men available, but last week a local mill-owner had , enough applications during one day to staff his mill thrice over. The majority of . the men are Australians.