LESS VEGETABLES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25300, 6 September 1945, Page 4

LESS VEGETABLES

EXPORTS TO PACIFIC CESSATION EXPECTED SOON (S.R.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday Present indications are that New Zealand will not be required to supply green vegetables for export to the American forces in the Pacific after the end of this year and no further plantings of vegetables under contract to the Internal .Marketing Division should take place after today without the authority of the district office of the division. This information was given by the Minister of Marketing, Mr Roberts, tonight. "Any grower who has made commitments in preparation for planting under a contract with the division should immediately lodge full details with the local office of the division or with its field officers, with a view to a settlement of compensation, where necessary, under the terms of the contract." said the Minister. "Growers must also supp.vl full details of the acreage now planted under contract, or the vegetables already sown or planted. "The division will take delivery of vegetables already sown or planted, but where delivery is estimated to be made after December 31 this fact should be notified immediately in writing to the branch office of the Internal Marketing Division for confirmation and arrangements made for the acceptance of those vegetables which are planted and will mature on or after January 1, 19-15. Further information of the details to be followed by growers will bo made available from the district offices of the division and by its field offices immediately." The Minister concluded that a similar procedure would apply to potatoes and onions. The Internal Marketing Division would work in close collaboration with the New Zealand Grain, Seed and Produce Merchants' Federation toward this end. UNUSUAL FREIGHT CONSIGNMENT OF WASPS TRANSPORT FROM ZANZIBAR A consignment of black wasps from Zanzibar lias arrived at Auckland by a Tasman Empire Airways flying-boat. The wasps, which were ordered by the Island Territories Department, are being kept in insect-proof boxes at the Mount Albert plant research station hefore being sent to Samoa, where they will assist an earlier consignment in combating the coconut-beetle menace. Known to entomologists as Scolia refioortiis, the insects are about an inch long and similar to the mason bee. They are a bluish-black colour, with iridescent wings and some havo a little red on the antennae. The wasps, in three containers, each the size of a kerosene tin, were flown from Zanzibar to Cairo and thence to Karachi. From Karachi they were brought by Qantas Empire Airways to Sydney, via Ceylon and Perth, and the Tasman flying-boat carried them from Sydney to Auckland. Jt is believed that there are about three dozen in the consignment. About (30 wasps arrived alive in the last order. Although they are not dangerous to human beings or animals, the wasps sting and destroy the grub of the coconut bettle, whoso depredations cause losses amounting to thousands of pounds a year to coconut crops. The beetle has been known to ruin 75 to 80 per cent of the palms in a plantation. INJURED IN FALL Following a fall at her home yesterday afternoon, Mrs Helon Mary Locke, aged SO. of Rewhiti Avenue, Takapuna, was admitted to the Auckland Hospital suffering from a fracture of the left hip.