Local & General

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 89, 1 September 1948, Page 4

Local & General

Agricultural Scholarship A bequest of approximately £3,400 has been made to Massey Agricultural Collegb by the. trustees in the estate of the late Edgar A. McGowan, for the founding of a scholarship to be known as the D. J. McGowan Scholarship. This will be awarded at the discretion of the / College authorities. Ice Cream Manufacture The manufacture of. ice cream is steadily being placed on a more uniformly high basis through short training courses for manufacturers. Initiative in establishing these courses has been taken by the Ice Cream Manufacturers’ Association, which has arranged for a. four-days refresher course, for the second year in succession, at Massey Agricultural College in the latter part of September. Beautifying Whakatane .Members of the Whakatane Beautifying Society have been busy lateh r - Six Phoenix pines given by Mrs. White of Merritt Street" have been* planted at the Hospital. Also all those trees that did not live when pj anted at Jhe Heads some time back have been re-planted. At the moment an extensive plan for planting some of the more or less bare rock faces overlooking some of the streets are under preparation.

Better Beer Better beer is envisaged as the ultimate result of efforts being made to buy land for a hop research station in the Motueka dr Riwaka area before the end of the year. A survey has been made of New Zealand hop kilns and hop-curing practice and -root rot disease has been found to be one of the major problems eonfrontirig the industry. Immediate research into this and other problems will be begun once the station is established. ’ Eruption Needed? One reason . why Miss Cicely Courtneidge was keen to come to New Zealand was to renew her stock cf pumice stone, she told her audience in Wellington, It appears, that while in Sydney she lost her pumice stone, arid asked her dresser to try and get some. The dresser searched everywhere, and finally came back with the story that the chemist had told her that pumice'came froiri New Zealand, and that “they were waiting for, another eruption” to obtain supplies. ' ' Display Of War Relics' When the . Dominion Museum opens again it will' contain a section devoted’to the display of war relics. The'section, will be contained within a display-. dealing:' With New Zealand'history, and will show tlie part played by New "Zealanders in four wars—the Maori wars, the ''South African War, and trie First and Second World Wars. The director of the museum (Dr R., exhibits'{were -being organised" lowing their removal from the temporary storage space they occupied during the war. “Parasite” Plane . -V. _ .. A tiny 21 ton • parasite " 'fighter, designed ' for us with the B-36' bomber, will 'be flown soon. Designated fhe XP-85, it has no landing gear and. will be retrieved by the mother ship by a ‘trapeze.” Wings are folded for storage and are opened on the f»trapeze.” Powered by a Westinghouse 24C turbo-jet, developing 3,000 lb. static thrust, the plane has a top speed of over 650 [ m.p.h. Rate of climb is described as , “tremendous.” . -Extremely short fuselage and wings greatly enhance < the plane’s stability. Counting Wheat Grains A machine for counting grains of wheat has been developed by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Christchurch, at . the request of the Wheat Research Institute. The grains are counted to ensure the standardisation of trial plantings and the gauging of a new wheat variety’s performance compared with that of other strains. The wheat is poured into a tube, where it is separated into grains, which then pass under a photo-elec-tric cell.' The interruption of the light beam caused when the grains pass under the cell is recorded in the mechanical counter, which has an error of .2 per cent. ■ _

Tauranga Lemon Production Dealing with lemon production at Tauranga on Saturday, the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Cullen, stated that in 1940 approximately 34,800, loose bushels were produced in the Tauranga district, compared with a total production for New Zealand of 81,000 loose bushels. In 1944, Tauranga produced 66,900 loose bushels as against 112,000 loose bushels produced throughout the country. Tauranga produced 63,400 loose’bushels in 1947, the total New Zealand production that year being 90,100 loose bushels. For 1948, the figures were Tauranga 60,000 and the total Dominion production 74,000 loose bushels.