GENERAL ITEMS.

Waipa Post, Volume XIX, Issue 1055, 15 February 1921, Page 3

GENERAL ITEMS.

“What do you want with that?” queried the sergeant as a visitor casusually laid an innocent looking walk-ing-stick on the desk (states the Southland Times). “Register it,” was the reply. “We don’t register walkingsticks,” said the officer. The visitor picked up t{ie walking-stick, and, giving it a sharp turn, revealed to the astounded onlookers a breech, capable of taking a .410 cartridge. The curious arm was inspected with interest, and its owner said that he still used it for rabbit shooting. A Palmerston North car owner, whose faithful terrier guards his property while. the car is parked, and rides proudly beside his master while on pleasure bent, had a shock the other day (states the Manawatu Times.) The car was left, with the dog in full charge, while the owner went to fit a new suit, which he decided to wear home as a surprise to his wife. After cranking up the car he sought to take his seat at the wheel, but the guard was too sharp for this apparent stranger in new raiment. The encounter was so severe that the new suit had to be returned to the maker for extensive repairs. On the master’s return, clothed once again in the longfamiliar shabbiness, the terrier mutely, but eloquently, sought to explain the big fight with the would-be car thief. The man in the soiled clothes was cold and disdainful, leaving the terrier to reflect bitterly upon man’s ingratitude to dogs. How many people recognise in the popular edib'le tomato the love apple which at one time was grown purely for decorative purposes? Its present popularity as a food is due to Mr Adam Duncan, a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society, who died recently. When he first knew the tomato it was a crinkled, woolly thing which no one dreamt of as food. By careful hybridisation, however, he succeeded in producing tthe smoothskinned, luscious fruit of to-day. Mr Duncan was the son of. a Banffshire crofter, his only schooling being two periods of three months during winters too severe for him to herd cattle. The school was the village cobbler’s shop. His first success as an horticulturalist was in the early ’eighties, when he took up the chrysanthemum, and became prominent amongst those pioneers whose patience and skill evolved from the comparatively little flower of that time the large and feathery bloom of to-day.