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Otago Witness, Issue 3958, 21 January 1930, Page 45

The proposal to deviate the North Auckland railway line by tunnel under the city from Beach road to the Moi ningside Station has been abandoned. The Minister of Railways (Mr W. B. Taverner) slates that the project has been fully reviewed after a perusal of the rep i ts by the general manager of railways. The electrification of the scheme for the Auckland suburban area would have to be adopted, including the line between I’apakura on the south and Heleusville on the north, at a cost approximately of £1,174.570, bringing the gross estimate expenditure of the whole scheme to £2,174,540. There would be no marked economy as a result. The figures indicated that the present traffic did not warrant this expenditure, and it v.as unlikely that the construction of a tunnel would have an influence on the growth of goods or passenger traffic sufficient to. justify such a huge expenditure. Additional and special harvest weather forecasts will be broadcast daily from 3YA, Christchurch, and 4YA, Dunedin, at 12.45 p.m., continuing until 1 p.m., commencing on Monday, Januaiy 20. This forecast is being specially supplied by Dr Kidson for the benefit of the farming community in the southern districts, and it will be continued during the harvest season. In addition the usual weather forecast will be broadcast during the evening session.

A regrettable slip on the part of tlie National Academy of Design is causing much embarrassment in the more conservative artistic circles here (writes the New York correspondent of The Times). The academy, although highly traditional in its views, decided that this year, awarding the Altman prize of £lOO, it would prove itself perfectly capable of giving due and unprejudiced recognition to “ modern art ”on occasion. The jury, composed of 20 members and associate members of the academy, awarded the prize to a composition entitled “ The Fossil Hunters,” by Mr Edward W. Dickinson. Too late it was discovered —by the official photographer summoned to take a photograph of the painting—that tlie picture had been hanging on its side the whole time, a fact undetected by the academy jury. It has, moreover, been discovered that the same picture was exhibited at the Carnegie International Exhibition at Pittsburg in 1928, and that there, too, it was displayed hanging the wrong way up. The Isle of Mull is the ancestral home of the M’Lean’s and Mr P. J. M’Lean, of Greymouth, found that little island, sentimentally, the most interesting place he visited during a recent trip to the Old Country. At Duart Castle there he met the chief of the M’Leans, Sir Fitzroy M’Lean, an old gentleman of 94, who took part in the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. Sir Fitzroy has all his faculties, is very bright and takes a keen interest in affairs. Mr M’Lean also visited historical lona, which was a burial-place of the M’Leans. In Culloden and other ancient Scottish battlefields he took a deep interest, and he spent much time, when he was not on business, ir> specting old Scottish castles. The attention of all occupiers of orchards from which fruit is sold, er which have been planted for the ultimate sale of fruit (although the trees may not yet be in bearing) is drawn to the necessity of applying for the registration of their respective orchards during this month. An application to register card is forwarded by the Department of Agriculture to all those who have previously registered, but such action is not incumbent on the department, and lack of receipt of a card is no excuse for nonregistration. A monetary penalty awaits the forgetful orchardist, but seeing that orchard registration is the basis upon which the orchard tax is levied, and that the orchard tax is expended in furthering the interests of fruitgrowers in general, registration should be indulged in joyfully. It should be noted by small growers that although orchards of less than 120 trees are exempt from tax, they must nevertheless register their orchards, however small, if fruit is sold or is intended to be sold therefrom.

The State Forest Service rangers at the Waipoua forest (telegraphs the Dargaville correspondent of the Auckland Star) have made a track leading to the big kauri tree, “ Tane-Mahuta,” and a concrete fireplace has been constructed on the roadside for the use of visitors. Around the famous tree a breast-high fence has been made of fern tree trunks to prevent people climbing round the base and doing damage. In spite of this protection, however, one of the forest guards reports that recently a party of 30 climbed over and tried to swarm up the base of the tree. When the guard remonstrated they simply said: “Why worry? We aren’t going to pinch your old tree! ” Tane-Mahuta, which is the largest kauri known, measures 49 feet in girth at the middle of the trunk, which is 30 feet high to the first branches, so that it is actually greater in girth than in. height.