HALCOMBE NOTES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18973, 26 March 1924, Page 2

HALCOMBE NOTES

(From Our Own Correspondent.) The Haleombe Hockey Club held its annual meeting on Monday evening. The balance-sheet showed a credit balance of nearly £2. It was stated that though the finances were all right, the membership was not so. Last year the local team was disqualified in the latter part of the season by the Feilding Hockey Association for a year for refusing to play under a certain referee, three members, the eaptaia, secretary and another prominent player, being “put up” for two years. Local players felt that the Haleombe Club had been treated harshly by the parent body, and several members stated they would not play again. So the 'club, which could only just scrape up a team at the best of times, was now short of players. A letter was read from the Tiki Club, of Wanganui, desiring to arrange matches. It was ultimately decided to suspend operations for a time. Should new members to take the place of those who dropped out be enrolled, the club will again start operations, but for the present it was not possible to put a full team in the field. The secretary was instructed to write the Tiki Club, regretting the local club’s inability to play a game. Two local ladies were well np in the prize list of the Feilding Flower Show held last week. They are Mrs. W. Faulding and Mrs. A. Peffers. These two flower enthusiasts are great workers in horticultural matters, and no one begrudges them their success. The district around Haleombe is looking exceedingly well, and it is doubtful if winter has ever approached under more favourable conditions than at present. There may have been occasions when there was at this time of year more grass in the paddocks, but the writer does not remember them. Though there has been a good deal of wind at times during the summer, rain has fallen opportunely, and there have been good stretches of fine weather, en - abling crops to be harvested, and bringing the green feed and root crops along splendidly. Cream cheques are still keeping up very well, though for last month, payment for which was received on Thursday last, local suppliers received one penny per pound less than for the January quota. If only the bottom of the English butter market does not fall out altogether,scowkeepers will be able to carry on comfortably. Dairy farming pays at Is 6d per lb of butterfat, which was the amount our butter factory paid out for last month. There is every likelihood of the supply of eream for the autumn months being far ahead of the returns last season. , There is some talk of forming a lend ing library in Haleombe. The idea seems to have originated with members of the Ladies’ Hockey Club, which, it appears, has money to burn, and is looking for an institution which could make good use of the money. A suggestion that the coin be handed to the local footballers was not enthusiastically received. The idea of forming a circulating library is a good one, as nothing of the kind exists here. Years ago Haleombe was blessed with something approaching a library. It was known as the “Chronicle Book Club,” if I remember right, and owed its inception to the enterprise of the late Mr. J. A. Young, of Wanganui. It flourished for a time, but gradually the volumes went astray, and the scheme, which gave a lot of pleasure to a score or two of residents, had to be abandoned owing to careless and unscrupulous people losing or keeping the books.

Not much chaff has been cut hereabouts yet. Growers are mostly holding on, hoping for better prices. At the beginning of the year there was talk of chaff opening at £l2 per ton, but so far no one in this locality has been lucky enough to get a tenner. The splendid rains have brought along the green feed, and the only nope a farmer tells me of getting a couple of pounds over the price chaff brought last season is to hold on. The best price offering at present is in the vicinity of £7, and there is not a great deal made out of chaff at that price. We had another noxious weed inspector visiting us last week, which brings up the number of visits paid Haleombe to four in the last few months. There must either be a surplus of inspectors in the Department or else there is little inspection work in other localities. But despite the close attention which has been given to the weeds by officials there is still a groat deal of gorse in the vicinity which has not so far this season been cut. The other morning I read that someone had succeeded in breaking the Auckland to Wellington motor record. What good are these broken records, anyway? For the sake of a brief notoriety the breaker turns himself into a deadly peril to everyone along the road he travels. The speed recorded last week is said to have averaged something over 40 miles an hour for the whole distance, and, in part*, reached 60 miles. As the best sections of the roads are invariably close to the towns, the local speed regulations were simply ignored. It is only a matter of time when one of these speed hogs will go roaring down a hill at a mile a minute just as a country school empties its youngsters across the road. Meanwhile, travellers are harried, and the curses of those using the roads follow the flying car. Haven’t the Automobile Associations got sufficient foresight to see that these record-breaking tnps are building up for ordinary motorists an unpopularity from which they are all liable to suffer?