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Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5213, 7 December 1927, Page 2

As a dairy cow cannot miss a milk

ing without danger of suffering harm

something in the nature of a roll, call at the shed is desirable. When the cows are numerous it is difficult to detect the absence of one; by merely

looking them over in the yard. A farmer near Inglewood (says the Taranaki Herald), after giving the ma.ttei” considerable attention, has fitted his shed with a simpl.e yet ingenius counting apparatus. A wirer •runs overhead along the bails, connecting at one end with an electric bell, and a large clial bearing numbers around its cirqumferen.ee. Each timq a cow is released after milking the wire is pulled, ringing the bell and moving to the next number a pointer which is operated by a cog-wheel. The total of the; cows milked is thus obtained, and if that does not correspond with the herd total a careful check 4s made.

A feature of the terrible tragedy

on Sydney Harbour, when the ferry-

boat Greycliffe was sunk, with the great loss of life, has escaped general notice. The ferry was the “school boat,” and was carrying a great number of children returning home from their schools, but the loss among these was small compared with that among the adult pasengers. A Gisborne resident, who was in Sydney at the time of the tragedy, commented upon this fact, and attributed the escape of scores of children to the fact that few youngsters nowadays are non-swimmers, while the adult generation still contains many people who have not developed confidence in the water. A contributing cause of the higher percentage of loss among the adult passengers would be the habit of the elders retreating to the ferry cabins and deckhouses, a habit not shared by the majority of the children, to whom the daily crossing of Sydney Harbour still contained enough novelty to keep them on the open decks.