CHRISTCHURCH NEWS NOTES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, December 6.

Otago Witness, Issue 2650, 28 December 1904, Page 50

CHRISTCHURCH NEWS NOTES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, December 6.

The screw is being put on Akaroa and the peninsula by the Valuation Department, and the unfortunate farmer in that vicinity must pay up or sell out. December 20. The Russian thar presented to the Government by the Dul-.eof Bedford arrived from Wellington this "morning, and were) sent south by the main train. They are strong, wiry-looking animals, not unlike common goats, but larger, some of them, being young ones. They are to be liberated in the Mackenzie Country, and no doubt they will do as well in this colony ac other imported game animals have done._ Being mountain game they are never likely to trouble settlers.

— Surinam, in Dutch Guiana, has the smallest range of temperature of any place in the world. In- summer the average is 78dieg" and ' in" winter 77£deg. — A growing plant should be kept in -the room -with a ' piano, says a piano-tuner. As long as Übe plant 'thrives, the piano will. The reason that a piano is injured by a dry, over-heated room is that all th« moisture is taken out of the, sounding-board. The "board is forced into tfie case so tightly that it bulges up in the centre, and though the wood is supposed to be as dry as possible when this is done, it contains some moisture, and gathers more on damp days. When this moisture is dried out, the board flattens and finally cracks.