LOCAL AND GENERAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4523, 14 January 1942, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The slaughtering season is now at its peak, and thousands of fat lamb's arc being handled daily at freezing works in the Auckland province. One works alone is dealing, with about 9000 lambs every full working dayManagements have had great difficulty in securing and retaining competent labour, as many experienced slaughtermen are now serving overseas. The peak season will taper off toward the end of this month, but substantial killings will continue for some time. Thames Valley people are extremely fortunate in the quantity of fresh shellfish available virtually at their back door. Apart from the Coromandel oysters (in season) and mussels which tempt their epicurean palates, there are the splendid pipi and cockle beds of half a dozen sandy bays along the Thames Coast. Puru, in particular, is popular with people for its plentiful supply of pipis. These tasty shellfish are gathered in tinfuls, being picked from their hiding places a couple of inches under the sand. Water held in Lake Taupo now rises about four to five feet above what was once regarded’ as the normal level. Some of this surplus water is due to an abnormally wet season, but residents believe that the operation of the new flood-gates controlling the outlet at the northern end are responsible for an increase of at least three feet of water. These conditions have materially changed the environs of the lake, particularly in the low areas of the south. Few campers have visited their favourite sites this year, but those who have found conditions little to their liking. Something was started round Morrinsville when a trust fund investor and a moneyed farmer in December compared notes on the subject of gilt-edged securities and decided that the National Savings offered the best safeguard return for money available for investment. The farmer at once plumped £250 into the fund at Morrinsville, where the district weekly, quota is £362, and at once the quota was £4O oversubscribed. The news of the farmer*? practical tribute to the investment value of the fund got round, and his judgment v'as so strongly trusted that next ■week the Morrinsville quota was £l7O oversubscribed. Christmas wmek and the following weeks saw the national savings “snowball” at this centre gather weekly proportions respectively of £747, £515 and £650. Monev collected to date in the Morrinsville district under the National Savings scheme amounts to £18,509, of which £7752 is in bonds and £10,756 in deposits.