Te Rangihīroa expands theory
To the editor:
On early navigators, our botanical evidence rests on the authority of Sir Joseph Banks, who accompanied Cook on his first voyage, and who was afterwards president of the Royal Society. Banks definitely stated that he saw the yam growing at Tolaga Bay.
In Banks’s Journal, edited by Hooker, 1896, on page 206, he describes seeing "six plants of what they called aouto, from whence they make cloth like that of Otaheiti. The plant proved exactly the same, as the name is the same, Morus papyrifera, Linn (the paper mulberry)."
The Rev W. Colenso FRS, whose knowledge as a botanist cannot be dismissed, wrote that he saw the plant growing in the Bay of Plenty in 1835. The above facts form part of the "cold truth" which men of science seek. The kumara, taro, gourd, yam and paper mulberry tree are not indigenous to New Zealand. Their presence here helps us to prove that not only did the Maori make the long sea voyage from Polynesia to New Zealand, but that he brought his cultivable food plants and his plant for clothing material. In other words, they organised their voyage or voyages.
— I am, etc, P.H. Buck.
Having a ball at expo
There can be little doubt that when the first man had filled in the first day by building the first house that ever was built, he must have felt the need of a little recreation. And it is more than likely that he found this by tossing a smooth stone or a rounded piece of wood up in the air and catching it again, or to his wife, who would probably miss it. Ever since then, the ball has been the greatest and finest means of recreation of all, and its uses are multitudinous, from the billiard ball to the football, or even the grotesque American push ball, high as a man. The little rubber ball is very handy, and it helps one section of the working population of Dunedin to pass the spare time very satisfactorily. Many of the taxi men have developed a high degree of proficiency in ball throwing and, in the hours when fares are scarce, the ball is kept flying at a merry rate. It should be splendid practice for the skittle alleys in Chocolate Row, as part of the Amusement Park at the Exhibition has been informally designated.
Cable brief
From time-to-time officials of the Otago Yacht Club have reported that petty thieving has been prevalent at the boat harbour and that slight damage has been done to dinghies hauled up on the foreshore. For the convenience of boating men the Yacht Club has had a cable stretched along the foreshore for the purpose of mooring dinghies. It will now be necessary for every boat owner to moor his dinghy safely to the cable. Any dinghies found lying around loose will be moored to the cable by the club’s officials.
— ODT, 9.2.1926
