ARMY APPOINTMENT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 147, 27 August 1941, Page 5

ARMY APPOINTMENT

STAFF CAPTAIN C. H. BREBNER

HOME GUARD ORGANISATION

Mr C. H. Brebner, engineer to the Whakatane County Council 1 , has agreed to accept a Commission as Staff Captain with the New Zealand Army and 1 it is understood he will have headquarters! at Whakatane from w'here he will organise and train the Home Guard.

Mr Brebner, since the inception of the Home Guard in this district has held the position of Battalion Commander and has from time to 1 'time refreshed his knowledge gained in the 1914-18 conflict and subsequent experience by training at Narrow Neck Military School.

In the Great War Mr Brebner left with the Main Body was at the Landing at Gallipoli and served through the Peninsular campaign, in all seeing three and a half years service. At yesterday's meeting of the County Council Mr Brebner was granted leave of absence for the duration of the war, and Mr R. O. - Tompkins, assistant engineer, was appointed acting-engineer for that period. Mr Brebner was congratulated on his appointment and the chairman, Mr J. L. Burnett, remarked that the duty of the council was to consider national matters first, re-, luctant as members might be to lose a valuable engineer.

Mr Brebner is to commence his Army duties on September 7 when he is to enter Trentham camp.

Donation to Plunket Society,

In accordance with a request from the Plunlcet Society for a donation the Whakatane County Council yesterday granted the sum of £2 2s.

out calls for harnessing a horse morning and night more effort will be needed. Lucky indeed will be the supplier who has a good supply of manpower about liis milking shed, so that one man or boy can see to the work of catching and harnessing the horse and loading the cans, while other helpers are finishing the milking. Where the supplier is already working short-handed then he will just have to do his best to get his cans to the road on time. He will manage it somehow, perhaps by leaving undone some of the things about his shed which ought to have been done. Adjustments in the Sheds. In old-established cheese districts the milking sheds are built to suit the business of catching milk in large cans. Not so in butter districts, such as the Rangitaiki Plains, Avhere all sheds have a separator room with a milk vat connected with a separator, and no conveniences for handling bulky 20-gallon milk cans.

To meet the needs of the change over to cheese the 200 suppliers will have to make some alteration to their sheds, so thai; the stream of milk finds its way into the milk cans with the least possible handling.

It will take no little thinking out, and every shed has its own problems, due to its location, the nature of the surroundings — whether concrete, grass or mud! Perhaps the suppliers and those who come to give them advice and help will have headaches before the necessary adjustments are made. Another job that is being put m hand*is the formation .and/.or metalling of approaches to milk stands at the roadside, or of the tracks from milking sheds to the roads. On some farms a good de(il of work will have to lie done to ensure that milk carts o?* milk lorries do not cut up the earth in wet weather. Some truck loads of gravel have already been delivered to farms for this purpose.

Disposal of Pigs,

By no means a small problem will be the. disposal of most of the pigs on the 200 or-so farms involved ir> the change over to checse. Most of the prospective suppliers are too far away from the factory to make it possible to secure whey. So they will sell their pigs. No doubt this will not be hard to do, for at this season of the year there is usually a good demand for breeding sows', with or without litters, weancr pigs and store pigs. Farmers still supplying butter factories in this and other districts will have big supplies of skim milk to get rid of, and will be "on the market" for pigs which cheese suppliers have to sell.

It is possible that some of the Rangitaiki pigs may be "evacuated" by mil to other parts of Bay of Plenty where the market is favourable.