MEETING THE NEED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21153, 9 April 1932, Page 14

MEETING THE NEED.

Sir, —"Two direct needs this winter will be.blankets and firing," says Major Gordon. Along the Main Trunk line are miles of good land cumbered with, heavy timber of excellent burning qualities—how excellent the farmer knows to his cost- when a spark from a passing engine sets-it alight iu-a dry- summer. • The farmer cannot afford time and labour- to clear it off remains a menace year after year.-while relief men are chipping weeds in the townships. Wood is going to waste, trains with dozens of empty trucks are passing it every day, aged people and children are suffering with cold a hundred miles away. With all the talking and planning,' cannot some scheme be devised to use this waste to supply this demand 1 A woman with initiative and brains bought eight sheepskins at"4s each. The wool, shorn, scoured and dried, enclosed and stitched in some old sheets, made six serviceable quilts equal in warmth to the ordinary kapok quilt. She also cured eight nics mats for her children's rooms, at a cost of less than 10 per cent. Where our people learn to make use of the country s natural resources, as the pioneers did, they will not be so knocked when hard times come. The authorities are doing their best with a hard world-wide problem. Ask' our social service workers how many they, find who would rather exhibit first-hand knowledge of some cinema star "features" than do a little extra hard graft, like the lady mentioned above. M.S.J.