Untitled

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3172, 29 August 1881, Page 3

The following may be interesting to farmers and others who complain of the devastation caused by small birds in their gardens and amongst their fruit trees. There has just been invented (says the New Zealand Times) a patent seed and fruit protector, in the shape of a metal representation of a bird of prey on the wing, for suspension in fields and gardens, shaped and colored in close imitation of a hawk hovering over his prey. By means of an elastic spring or wire carried from one tree to another, or from a chimney to a tree, it,

responds readily to the motion of the wind, and so increases the lifelikenesa of the ettigy. The device is said to be extremely •efficacious in scaring birds. At the present time (says an Otago paper), when an effort is being made to establish a woollen factory iv Oatnaru, it may interest many to know that the oolony expends annually on imported woollen goods nearly £200,000. The two most successful woollen factories in the country are those at Hosgiel in Otago and Kaiapoi in Canterbury. At first both _ were a heavy drag upon their owners —in the case of Mosgiel through a too lavish expenditure on plant and indifferent management, and in the case of Kaiapoi through a lack of capital and bad management combined. However, both establishments have now more work to do than they can conveniently keep pace with ; and the Mosgiel Company now pays, we believe, eleven per cent, on the capital invested, while at its last meeting the Kaiapoi Company declared an interim dividend of eight per cent per annum.