LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20072, 9 October 1928, Page 10

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

Tenders for the installation of chlorination plants at the Parnoll and Shelly Beach baths closed yesterday and will be considered at a meeting of the Parks Committee of the City Council this afternoon. Asked yesterday when the baths were likely to be reopened, the town clerk, Mr. J. £\ Brigham, said so far as the committee was concerned it would not allow the baths to be available for swimming until the chlorirtation plants were installed. x The search for the obstruction near Gisborne, which damaged the steamer Northumberland early last year, cost the Navy £227. Provision for the payment of this sum by the Marine Department to the Navy Department is rnado in tho Supplementary Estimates. The work of repairing tho steamer Antonio at King's Wharf was continued during tho week-end, with tho result that the tailshaft has been replaced and tho sparo propellor substituted for tho one damaged during stormy weather. The steamer's engines are now being overhauled, and the work is expected to be completed by to-morrow evening.

A foretaste of the welcome that awaits him from Scots throughout New Zealand was experienced by Lord Lovat in the Town Hall yesterday. As ho was leaving tho City Council chamber a voice flung a greeting in Gaelic, and Lord Lovat, who promptly replied in the same tongue, found himself in a laughing group of four or five people, all of whom had coino from some part of his great Highland estates. The Gaelic had come from Mr. John Gardiner, a thirty years' resident of New Zealand, who had been brought up in the village of Beuly, two miles from Beaufort Castle, Lord Lovat's seat near Inverness, and who well remembered him as a young man. Others in the group were two veteran Presbyterian ministers, the Revs. William Macdonald and J. D. McKenzie. Tho warmth of the greetings on both sides wholly disproved the common notion that the Scots are a dour people. In his speech Lord Lovat had expressed his pleasure "at again meeting an old Scots friend, Sir Georgo Fowlds."

After attending an international medical conference in London Dr. L. M. McKillop, of Brisbane, and Dr. J. ,W. Dansey, of Sydney, are returning to Australia by the Niagara. They stated one of the decisions of the conference was determination to educate the public to the danger and increase of cancer. While much cancer research work had been going on, there had been no recent discoveries of note. After a lapse of several months servico cars resumed a direct servico between Gisborne and Opotiki yesterday, states the Heraed's Opotiki correspondent. During the winter private cars have occasionally gono through. Cars which went through on Sunday and returned yesterday morning had no difficulty, and it is hoped the weather will enable the services to be carried on. As the route is to be improved this summer it is fully expected there will now be a servico all the year. The scheme proposed by the Borough Council for tho installation of community lighting in Hamilton and Frankton was accepted at a meeting of the Hamilton Retailers' Association last evening. The proposed system provides for lamps of 200 candlepower at regular intervals of 15 feet. Tho habits of the pukeko were discussed at a recent meeting of tho Te Awamutu Acclimatisation Society. One farmer staled that he 'had been a witness of a strange incident near a sluggish stream. In the water was a wild duck and her brood. Nearby, standing on a thick matting of watercress, was a pukeko. A hawk, flying overhead, was the signal for the ducklings to dive, to emerge a few seconds later among tho watercress. To the astonishment of the observer the pukeko swiftly seized one of the ducklings by tho head, stopped over to firm ground, and there killed the duckling by striking it sharply against a stone. A second later the head had vanished into the pukeko's throat.

" If we can get markets there should be no difficulty in absorbing Britain's surplus population," said Sir William Glasgow, Commonwealth Minister of Defence, at the luncheon to Lord Lovafc yesterday. " Australia and New Zealand have the flush of their seasons about the same time, and there is room for cooperation between them to see tho world's markets are fed uniformly. If (lie control boards of tho various industries would tako the matter up, that would do a great deal to bring such an arrangement about." Tho weekly programmes of wireless messages from members of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition, at present on board tho liaso ship City of New York, cn route to Dunedin, were commenced on Sunday afternoon, tho Pittsburg station KDKA being occupied for over two hours in reading messages and greetings from all parts of the world to tho explorers. Throughout tho broadcast, Mr. Robert Patty, station 2AE, Gisborno, and Mr. Alex. Reid, station 2BE, Montreal, amateur operators, stood by to check tho results of transmission. The organiser, Mr. George A. Wendt, of tho Canadian Westinghouse Company, KDKA, acknowledged a report received from Mr. Patty and expressed appreciation of the assistance given by him in the preliminary tests. The question of a daily parcel mail to Opotiki was again discussed at a meeting of the Opotiki Chamber of Commerce, members voicing the opinion that tho Government by refusing to send parcels daily by rail instead of by boat weekly was working against tho interests ol' the Railway Department. It was decided to write to tho Postmaster-General on tho subject. Lecturing at a mooting of tho Philosophical Inslituto in Christchurch, Dr. P. W. llilgendorf said that grass-breed-ing experiments at Lincoln College were confined to ryegrass, cocksfoot and red clover, becauso they were imported plants arid were most easily introduced when an improvement in pasture was desired. Wheat, oats .and barley wore selffertilised, but the grasses were thought to bo cross-fertilised, and so breeding had always boon looked upon as a matter of groat difficulty. Elaborate experiments at Lincoln, however, had resulted in devising a method of securing self-fertilisation. This consisted of planting tho grassos in tho middle of crops of wheat and oats. The lecturer showed a number of slides demonstrating tho great differences existing in cocksfoots and ryegrasses. These showed that soma strains produced three or four times as much feed as others.