Parliament nuts about fruit

The Beaumont School's practical elementary agriculture class, which was awarded six firsts, two...
The Beaumont School's practical elementary agriculture class, which was awarded six firsts, two seconds, two thirds and one special prize at the Dunedin Winter Show. - Otago Witness, 15.7.1914.
The unusual, but exhilarating, scene was witnessed in the House of Representatives on Thursday evening (says the Post) of the whole of the House listening with whole-hearted interest to an address by Mr Massey upon fruit growing.

A Bill to promote the interests of the fruit-growing industry was under discussion the greater part of the evening, and during its progress the lion lay down with the lamb.

And when, after an instructive discussion, the Prime Minister, who was in charge of the Bill, rose to reply, the House lay back and listened with the keenest interest.

Mr Massey became enthusiastic as he described the best qualities of apples for different localities, the way the trees should be planted, according to the soils, the way the fruit should be packed and graded, and so on, and imparted the latest news regarding the market possibilities.

As Mr Massey enthused he became the farmer, telling of his latest successful hobby, and even Mr Atmore interjected in perfect approval.

It was one of those exceptional scenes sometimes witnessed in the House, and it left a longing for more.

The fruit industry will be the better for it.

• An adverse report upon the proposal to establish a radium institute for the North Island, in which connection the Palmerston North Hospital Board recently sought the co-operation of the Auckland Hospital Board, was submitted to the latter body on Tuesday night by Dr C. E. Maguire, medical superintendent of the hospital.

He stated that to his mind the proposal was at present a very debatable one.

In the letter from the Palmerston North Board it was stated that there was little need to point out that the use of radium was now beyond the experimental stage.

This statement he disputed. Radium as a cure for cancer was still awaiting the sanction of time.

In one of the latest medical journals from England it was said that it was not possible to give the assurance that radium was a specific cure for cancer.

Evidence was accumulating to show that it afforded a very valuable method of treating cancer, but while there was an increasing number of cases which apparently had been cured by the application of radium, the time had not yet arrived when it could be said definitely that such promising cases were actually cures.

A well known surgeon in Wellington had told him that he had sent to the director of the Radium Institute in London within the last few months, who had advised him that in his opinion the time was not yet ripe to go in largely for radium.

The director's advice was to wait for about two years, by which time he hoped that more definite results would be available as to the value of radium as a cure for cancer.

• What must be a record so far as primary schools football is concerned has been established by the Invercargill Marist School team for the season just ended.

Their record reads: Matches played, 7; won 9 (two defaulted to them); scoring 216 points to nil, an average of over 30 to nil for each match played.

No opponent has crossed their line for the past two seasons, only a goal from a mark, registered last year, being scored against them.

• A Totara supplier to the Waitaki Dairy Company Oamaru, received a letter from his brother, who is a storekeeper in the Orkney Islands, stating that he frequently bought ''Waitaki'' butter, to retail it to his customers.

It is rather a novelty (says the Mail) for one brother to produce cream on one side of the globe in New Zealand and the other to sell it in the form of butter in his store on the other side. - ODT, 23.7.1914.

 


• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ

 

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