CLEANINGS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 17 February 1915, Page 4

CLEANINGS.

HUE AD AMD MEAT

The price of bread is nothing compared to the price of beet, says a correspondent to the Greymouth "Argus. Ask any householder "in the Dominion to sit down quietly and think how much extra the monthly bread hill is through the increase price ol Hour. Do .t yourself, reader, and you will get u

surprise. 1 venture to say the increase ] in the average household is not 12s a month, but what about meat? ana what is going to happen r The farmers of this country have and are having instead of a loss a most bountiful harvest and they deserve to reap the fruits of their industry, but not to the extent of getting huge prices at the expense of the people as a whole. By all means let exporting go on to feed the armies of the Allies who are fighting for us, but does all the meat go to our men? The exploiter cares not so long as he gets money zor the meat, but we in this Dominion have the home army to feed. The people and Government should at onoe taKo steps to fix tho retail price of beel and mutton throughout the Dominion. The farmer would then have to supply the wheat in a similar manner. The Sydney Commission has fixed the price of bran vt £7 10s and pollard at £8. New Zealand should do the same and fix the rotail price of meat atr (id per lb, the levelling up would soon follow.

FLAX LEAF PARASITE. | Xanthorhoe is the scientific name of a most destructive moth which attacks growing flax. The flax leaf is punched through, as it were, by the moth, thus breaking the iength of the fibre. In an article describing tthis comparatively newyl discovered pest., Mr A. H. Cockayne, Government Entomologist, says that until quite recently it was thought by many people that the damage was done by the native slug, an animal that is abundant in all flax swamps. Indeed, -Mr T. W. Kirk and Mr Cockayne, »n an article on the diseases of flax, definitely stated that the injury was caused by this slug. "Their presence in large numbers on affected leaves led to this supposition" ((writes Mr Cockayne), "but I always inclined to the opinion that it did not do any injury, but fed entirely on decaying matter at the ba&es of the plant." Now he : b convinced that it is the grab lof the moth Xanthorhoe Praetectata that causes the mischief and it is highly probable, he holds, that "the almost total destruction of the 'insect-eating water fowl and swamp birds, formerly so abundant in the flax areas, kept down the spread of Xanthorhoe to a large extent."