LIFE'S LITTLE WANTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 24 June 1930, Page 4

LIFE'S LITTLE WANTS.

The Optimistic Touch.

“Do you give a guarantee with this hair restorer?” “Guarantee? Why, we give a comb. ’ ’ • * « * \ Tons of Honey. Sixty billion bees were living ? dn 1,700,000 hives in Germany last year, according to a statistical report made to the Reichstag. The production of honey during 1929 was 10,526 long tons, valued at £1,334,000. The return from the sale of honey exceeds the value of the hop harvest by five million marks. * * * * Wasted Effort! A college boy wired home to his father: “No mon’ No fun Your son.” To which the father replied, equally as brief: “Too bad Too sad Your dad.” • * * * Locust Plague. Passengers in the Orient liner Otranto, when the vessel was lying off Tangier, were disturbed when the was stormed by locusts. The came off the land, covered the decks, in-1 vaded the cabins and crawled everything. ? | All the beautiful gardens of the Eng-| lish colony have been entirely eaten up| by these pests, which swarmed ovej| the city and surrounding country fo« five days. S Northern Territory Crocodiles.

Tho Northern Territory is'aVcounfry|j with a great future, according to Dr. W. B. Kirkland, who arrived in Auckland from'Australia recently, but there are one or two unpleasant features in the life there. One of these was constituted by the prevalence of crocodiles in the northern rivers'. “I’ve seen a genuine photograph of one of these brutes 25 feet long,” the doctor said. They got to know the water holes, and they would lie in wait there at night for animals as they came to drink. Right close in to the bank they hid, with only tjieir nostrils above the water. Their mode of attack was peculiar. Either they would drag at their prey with the sharp claws of their powerful front legs, or they would knock the animal into the water with their tail and then drown it. Either method was effective.

Food Factors.

Additions to knowledge about the vitamins, or accessory food factors, are being made with great rapidity, says the * ‘ Times. ’ ’ A few years ago, for example, it was believed that Vitamin A served the double function of promoting growth and preventing the onset 'Of rickets. ‘Thanks to the work of Professor and Mrs MeUanby, however, evidence soon became available that itamin A is the agent responsible for maintaining bodily resistance. It was shown that rich supplies of Vitamin A are present in the livers of a large numberof animals, and, further, that carrots, green vegetables, butter and egg-volk contain supplies. The study has now been pursued from a different angle. The British Journal of Experimental Pathology describes experiments with the substance known as “carotene,” which favour the view that the efficacy, as sources of Vitamin A, of carrots, green vegetables and even butter and egg-yolk /depends on the presence of carotene, and that it should prove valuable as both a prophylactic and a therapeutic agent. It is much easier to administer than liver-fat, and may be expected to act more quickly. Incidentally, the popular belief in the value of carrots and green vegetables finds a new justification. These articles of diet, it would appear, play an important, and even essential, part in fortifying the body against infection. Vegetable soups, ought, on this showing, to occupy an important part in the food of children, for, as is well known, the best part of the vegetable remains in the water in which it is boiled.