DOMINION DOINGS

New Zealand Tablet, 29 March 1917, Page 31

DOMINION DOINGS

An effort is being made to establish the fruit industry on Banks Peninsula as part of the scheme for assisting returned soldiers. Many years ago Akaroa exported considerable quantities of fruit to southern markets, but the advent of the modern orchard pests and the cancellation of a regular service of cargo carriers to Dunedin put an end to that trade.

The managers of a number of picture entertainments applied to the Dunedin City Council for permission to open their theatres on Good Friday and show subjects suitable to the occasion. Cr. Patton moved and Cr. Thompson seconded that the application be declined. Comment was made on the nature of some of the programmes shown on Good Friday last year, and it was decided, by 16 votes to 5, to refuse the applications.

There is every indication that the dredging industry in Otago is going to be severely handicapped by the want of first class dredgemen, many of tHe best men having either volunteered for service or been called up by ballot (says the Otago Daily Times). It is very questionable whether some of the dredges will be able to secure a sufficient crew to commence operations. We understand that at the present time there is a shortage of dredgemen in both the Cromwell and Alexandra districts.

A rather novel sight (says the Otago Daily Times) was witnessed near Maungatua a few 'days ago, when the locomotion of 50 years ago met that o"f the present day, the former proving more reliable. A West Taieri farmer, who owns a motor car set out on a journey with Ins lady friends, but forgetting for a moment that the steering gear, if manipulated the wrong way, might turn the car off the track, found himself and friends firmly deposited in a creek. All efforts to restore the car to the track failed; but happily a teamster and his bullocks came in sight. The bullock team, being hitched to the car, soon righted matters, and the car again sped on its way.

The Canterbury Museum has acquired a decidedly interesting exhibit in the shape of a black swan's leather, on which are the following words in white: •From the wing of a wild black swan, New Zealand food gift to Belgium, War Time, 1915.' Under this the Belgian arms are executed in color. This memento was received by Mr. Quealy, who acted as secretary to a swan drive held in 1915, when a number of these birds were shipped to Belgium, and the feather has been sent to him by some grateful Belgian. Mr. Quealy handed the token to Mr. Tisdall, who subsequently sent it to the Museum as an historical memento.

A gentleman who takes a keen interest in this district (states the Alexandra Herald), writing to us says, inter alia-. —■' As the day is not far distant when our timber supplies will gradually begin to fail, I think that the waste places of Central Otago should be made use of by planting trees which would be suitable to make fruit cases. Later on nearly every class of timber will be deemed suitable for that purpose. Poplars should do well in the district, besides which they do not harbor so many birds as do fir and other trees. As the dredging industry in your district is practically a back number, I think that your townspeople ought to organise a tree-planting bee once a year to plant poplars and willows amongst the tailings wherever any silt has been deposited. As the trees grew up they would arrest more silt and fine sand, so that in a few years a great extent of the unsightly heaps of tailings would be relieved by having patches of green spread amongst them.' The suggestion is a good one, and is one which could be taken up by the local Expansion League.

We direct attention to the Easter Holiday timetable of the Dunedin Section of the New Zealand Railways which appears in this issue....