Ashurst Notes

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 28, 3 September 1891, Page 2

Ashurst Notes

J FROM OUR OWN CORRESEOiTDENT.] Mr W. Marshall has been given the building of Messrs Mowlem and Axbou's house on the Pohangina. Tenders were called for this work and three were given in. The lowest one was just about half the amount that Mr Marshall tendered for, viz., £100. The work was given to him to do because at the price he put in. Messrs Mowlem and Axbon considered he could make a good job. Now this is so unusual, that it deserves more than passing notice. Nine out of ten employers of labor accept the lowest tender, not waiting to consider whether it is a fair price for the work, that is why we have bo many complaints of work being badly done. A man with a family depending on his earnings knows that he must get over his work at a sufficient pace to return so much per day. I trust you will through the medium of your widely circulated paper, commend the action of these gentlemen to others. If this was done more generally, it would haye a better effect than shoals of Labour Bills, for it would really mean as your correspondent says, " Shorter hours and more pay." Your correspondent "Shorter hours and more pay " in speaking of limiting a farmer's hours by law to eight hours a day, has shown us one way of using the unemployed, for it would want quite an army to carry out the idea. I must say it is not one whit more extravagant an idea than the celebrated Shop Hours Bill which forbids a storekeeper using anj member of his own family in his own store after a certain hour. What will come next ? People are calling out about weasels, now there is a #ood belonging to this much abused animal. One has been remaining about a farm yard near Ashurst, which was tormerly infested vrifch rats. Now the latter are all gone. The weasel has the credit of it.

I Improvements are being effected at our railway station. The increasing timber traffic necessitated a large platform. Skids are put up for heavy joists. We are informed by newspapers generally, that a larger area of wheat than usual is sown this year. Now about the straw. The quantity of chaff used at Ashurst would surprise you. The three sawmills find employment for scores of horses and bullocks, the chaff for them is all imported. It is generally made of oat straw. In England horsekeepers never think of using oat straw for chaff, it is generally kept for store cattle, only J the cleanest wheat straw being cut up for horaes, on account of their wind. The chemical analysis shows the fet d <ng properties of the two straws to be about the same, I have often thought it strange that wheat straw is not more used, perhaps it will be as the demand increases, and then people will see that horses will work better than on oat straw. The 300 loads of metal lately put on the Pohangina road by Mr Corpe'.s drivers and the Kiwitea Road Board is being rapidly squeezed out of sight m the ruts, but there are plenty of big stones laid on the side to fill in with, only the men are wanting to put the n in Che contractors employed by the Kiwitea Road Board have larger mouths than those on this side of the Rubicon. I am iv- ; formed that stones should be broken about,the size of one'B moujtiu-