LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1930, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL

“High rents make poor tenants and poor tenants mean poor land,” remarked a well-known farmer in giving evidence in the Opunake Court yesterday.

In order to ensure that the Taranaki representative cricket eleven will be in form and have as much individual and team practice as possible between now and the match against the M.C.C. eleven on February 22 and 24, the Taranaki Cricket Association has asked the selectors to select 15 or 16 players as soon as possible. From these players the Taranaki eleven to meet the Englishmen will be chosen. Considerable losses will be suffered, it is feared, by some Poverty Bay .farmers who count on their crops of grass seed for a substantial contribution to their income. The recent heavy rain has drenched the seed grass which was lying in cocks in the paddocks, and in the process of turning the grass to dry it cut again, much of the seed will be lost. The majority of the growers still have their grass in the fields, cut but not harvested.

What is thought to be a record performance in mountain climbing by a young woman was established last week by Miss Dorftthy Carr, of New Plymouth. Leaving Dawson Fails hostelry at 6 a.m. she ascended Mount Egmont, descending on the northern side and reaching . the North Egmont hostelry at 10.40 a.m. She left North Egmont at 11.10 a.m., ascended the mountain, and descended to the Dawson Falls hostel, arriving there at 4 p.m. She thus completed the double ascent of the mountain in ten hours.

A passenger by one of the South Island expresses early last week told a Timaru Herald reporter of an alarming expcrienco which befel passengers in one carriage. When passing through Middleton a loud report was heard, and the next instant a piece of iron, seven inches in length, smashed through the carriage window. It then cut through a passenger’s boot and inflicted a nasty gash on the ankle. It was not known whether some irresponsible person committed the act or whether it was caused unwittingly by several men who were working in a shingle pit. One can always do with another frock especially if the cost is not high. McGrucr’s are making a Frock Material Week, during which special values are offered..,, The wise will call early. Special window and inside, display.

The Maoris called the parrakect the “Little Footballer,” said Mr. J. C. Andersen at the summer school last evening. The whites made out his song to be "Pretty Dick, Pretty Dick,” but the Maoris said that he cried “Free kick, free kick.”

Many of his excellent photographs of birds, explained Mr. Andersen at the teachers’ summer school last night, were taken with the camera 18 inches away from the subject. When a slide was shown of the caretaker with one bird on the bowl of his pipe, another on his head and others on his shoulders, this did not seem so difficult.

He had once begun to take the songs of birds, said Mr. Andersen. He had taken 200 different songs of the tui and 50 to 100 different songs of the bell bird. But the 200 songs of the tui were only one-tenth of what he had heard the tuis sing and he had been in the bush listening to them only one month out of the twelve in the year.

Rats caused great mortality among the bird life, said Mr. Andersen, at the teachers’ summer school last bight. One morning at Kapiti they had visited the nest of a robin. Nothing was left of the young except bones and feather's. They had gone to another nest where the mother bird had been sitting oil her Nggs. She too had been killed. Still another nest had been destroyed by rats. “We were afraid to visit any more nests that morning,” said Mr. Andersen.

Regulations gazetted this week provide for the coming into operation of the legislation passed last session increasing from £lOOO to £2OOO the limit of the individual loans obtainabh under the Rural Intermediate Credit Act. The regulations cover also consequential alterations in the legal enarges and other machinery matters.

The wreck of tlie Manuka has affected the tourist booking from Australia, according to the acting district manager at the Dunedin Government Tourist Office. Ho stated that several Australian tourists for whom arrangements to tour New Zealand had been practically completed had cancelled their tours, giving the wreck of the Manuka as their reason for doing so. Sir George Julius, chairman of the Commonwealth Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, has to .his credit the invention of a number of calculating machines and -also the automatic totalisator. When the totalisator was mentioned during an interview .with him upon his arrival in Wellington he remarked: “I will never live that down,” and added: “My only brother is the Doan of Christchurch, and I cannot blame him for it.”

-Following a statement by the present Prime Minister (Sir Joseph Ward) relative to the desirability of a universal Saturday half-holiday, affiliated associations of the Master Grocers’ Federation were commundated with, with a view to getting their opinion upon this question. The replies received indicated that there is not unanimity. Whilst a universal Saturday half-holi-day in general appeals to those in the cities and large towns, the country traders and those of the smaller towns do not generally approve. A rarity in the shape of a pure white deer has been seen several times lately on the Mason’s Bay road, states the Stewart Island correspondent of the Southland News. This freak does not often occur and several fruitless shots have been fired at the animal by sportsmen keen to secure this curiosity. It is pure white with apparently no trace of red though it is of the red deer variety.

“Birds are artists,” said Mr. J. C. Andersen at the teachers’ summer school last evening. “I have-heard the little warbler sing this.” He Whistled and. it' was the first few bars of “Home Sweet Home.” “And a tui sing this.” It was the first few bars of “Scenes That Are Brightest.” Once when he was at Kapiti he had heard a bell bird singing a few bars of “The Campbells Arc Coming.” But this was liable to exaggeration. He had mentioned it once in an address and the reporter had said that Mr. Andersen had heard a bell bird sing “The Campbells Are Coming,” The fact was published during a controversy in a newspaper at Home. The editor added: “The jest on the authority’s name is obvious.” “Andersen’s Fairy Tales,” said Mr. Andersen dcprecatingly. The cattle tick has made its reappearance in North Taranaki, ticks having been discovered on a farm at Barrett Road and also near Pungarehu. The precautions taken by the Department of Agriculture when cattle ticks were discovered at Waitara two years ago seem to have been effective, for there has been no further appearance since. However, in view of the recent discoveries, farmers are urged to co-operate with the officers of the Department of Agriculture whenever the presence of ticks in their herds is realised, so that preventive measures may at once be taken. Whereas there is no cause for alarm, it is necessary that any ticks that make their appearance should be exterminated at once, and steps be taken to prevent their spread. According to an incident related at the meeting of the New Zealand Flaxmillers’ Association at Foxton, on Monday, strikes from the earliest times have characterised this industry. Many years ago, when the industry was in its infancy, a veteran miller now resident in the Foxton district, opened a mill at the head of Lake Wanaka in the South Island. The mill was sup-', plied by an excellent valley of flax, and men were engaged to cu t the green blade at a figure in the vicinity of 5s per ton. They started all right, but it was not long before they decided to strike for higher pay as they considered it impossible to cut a ton a day. When the miller heard of tho matter he met the men and told them that he could easily cut two .tons of flax a day and there was no reason why they could not do tho same. The men took him at his word and challenged him to try his hand at tho hook. Although he had not cut flax for some years, he took off his coat and in five and a-half hours had cut two tons of the green blade. Having proved his statement, the men were quite prepared to return to their cutting at the figure stated and the strike was called off.

The Hustlers’ genuine Summer Sale is now on. Their prices arc always the lowest possible consistent with quality, but when the genuine sale reductions are made they become irresistible. The sterling policy of only holding two sales each year is an important factor in the unrivalled excellence of the values offered. The Hustlers, Drapers. Adjutant McKenzie states that he did not say at a Salvation Army gathering in New Plymouth this week that the Salvation Army was an essentially social organisation, but that it was essentially a spiritual organisation, and that its social work was dependent upon the spiritual life of the officers.

It will come as a surprise to motor ists to learn that there is at present in the Wellington district a three-seater motor-car of a well-known make, standard model, capable of travelling at a speed of 133 miles an hour on revel ground. More remarkable still, it can pull to a standstill from its 'maximum speed in the space of a second,’ or, alternatively, within ©5 yards.

In the last circular of the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society there is mention of the survey of th© habits of the opossum that is being made on behalf of the Department of Internal Affairs. In order to ascertain what this imported Australian eats in New Zealand something like 200 bodies have been examined, for that is th© only fair method of arriving at hia diet —mere observation not being always reliable evidence. The survey is still in progress.

“Rogue” dogs, have become a decided nuisance at Petone during the last four weeks, and drastic measures are being taken to check their depredations. Th© popular diversion for these canines is to raid fowl-runs and roosts, and kill as many of the feathered inhabitants as possible, not to eat them, but for the pleasure of the killing. Un Christmas Eve no fewer than 85 white leghorns of good strain, the property of the Mayor (Mr. D. McKenzie) were killed on his run in Britannia Street.

The fruit season in Nelson this year has every prospect of being a good one, according to Mr. C. Higgs, a well-known Nelson grower. Speaking to a News representative in New Plymouth yesterday Mr. Higgs said it was expected that the exports from Nelson province this season would be dose on three-quarters of a million boxes. The continual rain had caused more black spot than usual amongst the fruit, and in some districts frost had wrought a certain amount of destruction. Otherwise th© growers had good reason to be satisfied with the season.

Fifteen Nelson fruitgrowers, on their return home after a tour of the North Island, called in at New Plymouth yes? terday afternoon and stayed the night. Organised by Mr. C. Higgs, they have been combining business with pleasure, and have been visiting the fruitgrowing districts of Wairara-pa and Hawke’s Bay. They are travelling in two motor conveyances and came through the Awakino Valley yesterday, To-day they leave at nine o’clock for Wanganui. They were shown round New Plymouth yesterday by the chief borough inspector (Mr. R. Day), and expressed themselves as delighted with the beauty of Pukekura Park and other resorts.

The Melbourne’s Special Showroom week is attracting scores of customers who are taking full advantage of the reductions on frocks of all descriptions, bathing apparel, smocks, summer coats, lumber jackets, cardigans and sports blazers. >, See windows. Everything marked in plain figures-

Your family and friends want your Pertrait. This is an obligation every thoughtful and considerate man should meet. For Portraits that will please, call i£t Oakiey’fl Studios, upstairs, Kash Building, Devon Street, New Plymouth. 8.