LOCAL AND GENERAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4562, 20 April 1942, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Mr C. E. Robertson, founder of the New Zealand national yearling sales, has received advice from London that he has been elected a member of the British Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association.

During the first three days of last week 550,409 ration books, or over one-third of the estimated total, were issued in New Zealand. The issue of the books was maintained throughout the week.

At a meeting of the Wairarapa Power Board, when black-out arrangements were being discussed, it was held that Wellington City should, as the seat of administration, be taken as an example. The lighting controller had asked for more of the blackout in the Wairarapa, but members of the Power Board held that Wellington was a blaze of light by comparison, and that it was wrong to attempt stricter conditions in the country.-

The results of information obtained in Wellington by Messrs P. 0. Bonham and H. R. Fallwell, members of the executive of the Wake New Zealand movement, who returned on Saturday from a four-day visit, when they interviewed several officials connected with the defence production of the country, will be discussed at a meeting this week. The agenda for the meeting will include the completion of plans for the immediate extension of the work already undertaken in the Waikato throughout New Zealand.

When the Te Kuiti proposal that hospital finance should be the responsibility of the Government through the Social Security Department was discussed by the Matamata Borough Council, Cr Hawes emphasised that he could not agree to the method advocated. It meant that the cost would come out of wages. Instead he urged that the finance should be found from the social rent of land. If the Te Kuiti proposal was adopted, he argued, the cost would fall on the wage-earner instead of on the owners of site values.

The increasing labour shortage on farms, particularly in the districts where supply of milk is made to cheese factories, presents a difficulty in handling the herds for the afternoon milking. The biennial meeting of the Te Kowhai householders on Wednesday night gave full support to a resolution asking the Education Board to approve of altering the school hours, where desired, to permit of 30 minutes for the lunch interval, and subtracting the half-hour gained at the end of the day. This, it was claimed, would enable the older school boys to assist with the afternoon milking. It was stated that the school committee and the headmaster approved the idea, but it was necessary to obtain sanction from the Education Board.

Recently some prominence has been given to the report that an apple tree in the Hastings district had this season produced a crop of seven varieties. But Te Awamutu can go twice better than that. Mr C. Woodman has a single tree on his property in Mutu Street which has produced a prolific crop of fifteen distinct varieties. They range in size, shape and colour and each branch has its distinctive variety and all have been heavily cropped. The start was with Irish Peach early in the season, Gravenstein and Permain later and so on. At present the Winesap variety is in full bearing. On two other trees Mr Woodman Jias several varieties growing on one root. Christchurch has capped the Hastings story of seven varieties of apples by claiming a pear tree which produced 20 varieties of pears, but at Te Awamutu fifteen varieties on a single tree is not without merit in this inter-town contest for “exceptional croppers.”