A deputation from the Wellington Acclimatisation Society waited on the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. G. W. Russell) the other day and asked for some protection for opossums.
Mr W. H. Field, M.P., said that opossum skins were worth from 10s 6d to 1 each, and from one district in Otago 80,000 skins had been taken. In a piece of bush which he had preserved, at some expense, some unauthorised persons had secured 80 skins a month.
His own experience was that opossums would never be a menace like rabbits. The deputation asked that opossums should be protected at once, except in some such fruit areas as might be determined by the Minister after consultation with the head of the orchards' division of the Department of Agriculture.
The deputation also asked for some regulation of the method of killing, so as to ensure more humane methods being employed. After hearing other members of the deputation the Minister said he would ascertain the law on the subject, so as to see what were his powers, and he would then consider how far he would be justified in exercising those powers to protect opossums.
He expressed considerable doubt as to whether opossums might not yet be found to be a serious pest, and he was inclined to exercise some caution in protecting them for that reason.
•Twenty-three applications were received for the lease of a pastoral run of 19,750 acres, situated on the western shore of Lake Hawea, about 48 miles from Cromwell.
Four of the applications were from soldiers on active service beyond New Zealand. Soldiers' applications are given preference in the same degree as landless applicants who have children dependent on them, and who have within the preceding two years applied for land at least twice unsuccessfully.
The preference conditions reduced the number which went to the ballot to 19. The ballot was held yesterday afternoon, at the close of the examination, and the successful applicant was Mr John S. Woods, hotel-keeper of Omarama.
•According to the Christchurch Press the buds of the koromiko chewed and swallowed are claimed to be an effective specific for the cure of dysentery. A local citizen, Mr Chisholm, collected a number of these buds, packed them in an air-tight screw-top jar and sent them to a soldier friend at the front.
By last mail he received a reply that the buds had arrived in good condition, and had effected a remarkable cure of several men. The koromiko is a species of veronica, and its healing properties in the direction named were well known to the Maoris.
- ODT, 11.5.1916.
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