TOWN EDITION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11122, 9 November 1907, Page 6

TOWN EDITION

The British hen laid £9,000,500 worth . of eggs last year, according to Mr Edward Brown, the secretary of the National Poultry Conference. He estimated the poultry population of the country at 24,000,000. A Danish delegate to the conference said that there were about 800 egg and poultry societies in Denmark, and a member who brought in a bad egg was fined ss. When small holdings increased, poultry-keeping increased. Speaking to a Sydney gentleman, a New Zealand"* Times reporter elicted the opinion that Mr J. C. Watson, ex-Com-monwealth Prime Minister and leader of the labor party, had retired from politics Ijecause he was "dog-tired" at the ineffectiveness of his very stenuous work. It had been rumoured in Sydney that an important insurance company had approached Mr Watson, offering, him the general managership of the company. Mr Watson is not, . as is sometitttes understood, a particularly poor - ma'n, and is "able to live in modest comfort" without occupation. He is said to ha#e £20,000 invested in property in. the State. Depositors of over .three. months' standing iri the Post Office Savings Bank, according to a gazette 'hotice^may now have their accounts transferred to any Government savings banks in the United Kingdom, or to the Government savings banks of any British possession or foreign country with which a reciprocal arrangement has been made to that effect. Under this new arrangement, a man iri, say, Inverness, may transfer liis savings from tlie postal savings bank there to any savings bank office in New Zealand, and yice versa ; also if Austria be one of- the reciprocating countries, a Dalmatian gumdigger may remit his savings hpme by transferring his account from Dargaville to Pola, or any other place m the Austrian Empire, or vice versa. Messrs Caird Bros'., froni whose yards many of the best v/ssels belonging to the P. and 0. Company, have been launched, maintain tliat the Marama is the finest ship, in every respect, that they . have turjied out. Her engines which ure capable of working up. to\ 9GWV^orsepower, are not to be surpassed by: those of any other ship of equal size iri the world They include many of the very latest inventions known to .marine engineers, /tlie main engines being of the expansion type with ; twin low;-pres6ure cylinders. The ship is handsomely, furnished ' throughout, and lias -been planned' in such a manner that the saloons and cabins are roomy and the deck . space is quite exceptionally large. That • she is the finest passenger steamer' owned south of the line tliere is no question. Pampering ofVsheep (says" the N.Z. Times) is doing more harm to our wool trade than perhaps anything else. Take the case of the English Leicesters, as seen at Palmerston show. Some of the exhibits were clothed and pampered practically from the day they were born. For instance, the fleece of sheep may have little or no natural "style," but by being continually handled the wool is .giveri an artificial look, deceiving • to /all but the expert. Thus in buying, such/ a sire a farmer may consider he is securing a good type of the breed, - Whereas it is worse than useless from a wool. point of view. The effect of using ;such •a . ram in a flock would be disastrous, for instead of improving his wool the'-farmer, will have brought ,a bout a deterioration which may require seasons to correct. We would like to see. such trickery" spelling disqualification. Advocates of the construction in New Zealand of light lines of railway to. backAvoods districts will be interested by the observations of Mr E. 0. Lewer, of Kadoii, who recently travelled through America with an observant eye on tlie' country. "From Buffalo to New York," he says, "was the best line of railway lever travelled on, 'but I must say that America is not overdone with first class railway lines. They seem to put American failways down anywhere and anyhow/ and improve them afterwards. Tlie trains to their suburbs seem, to be constructed on the same principle. They put their sleepera down roughly, run their, trams and passengers over them at a liver-jolting rate, and as the population increases they improve tlie, line." In. the course of Mr Lewer's travels in Great Britain he met a prejudiced couple from the Isle of Man who were afraid to eat New Zealand frozen mutton,, because it died of disease and was frozen instead of buried. He succeeded in .. convincing these doubters that frozen meat- was all butchered, and that both man and. beast in New Zealand were entitled to' burial when death came by disease.