DISTRICT PARS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 223, 8 January 1910, Page 2

DISTRICT PARS.

The immigration into Canada last year from the United States totalled 90,148, and from Europe 90,522. American investments in Canada during the year amounted to £45,000,000. Notwithstanding that it is yet rather early in the season, a good number of sheep are coming into the district. Young ewes are greatly in demand, but are difficult to obtain, though an easier market is looked for laterr in the season.

As was anticipated by many farmers who had occasion to feel dissatisfied with the prices obtained by them for wool at the Auckland sales, a considerable amount of wool has this season been forwarded to the Wellington sales from Waikato and King Country districts.

Town sections at Te Kuiti continue to change hands at good prices and quite a number oJ| transactions are recorded of late. *The long strip of frontage to Rora street, opposite King street, which was secured at the last sale by Mr Erickson, has already been subdivided and portion sold at a good figure. Mr. C. B. Lever notifies that his first regular auction sale in Te Kuiti will be held on Saturday, the 15th inst., when in addition to the ordinary household sundries,- he will sell practically without reserve about 150 sacks prime chaff; carriers and others wanting good horse feed at their own price should attend this sale. The number of building permits issued by the Hamilton Borough Council for the year ending Decsmber 31st was 60, to the value of £23,753. The figures for the correpsonding period of the previous year were 71 to the value of £32,418. A decrease is therefore shown on last year of eleven permits to the value of £8665. The Te Awamutu Lawn Tennis Club held a most successful tournament on Monday, January 3-d, for trophies presented by Mrs Rickit and Mr von Sturmer. Throughout the day the play was most exciting. The winners were Miss B. Mandeno and Mr R. S. Galbraith. Mr von Sturmer, vicepresident, in an appropriate speech, made the presentations.

Residents of Piopio and surrounding districts will be glad to learn that arrangements to carry on the school in the Miroahuiao Hall have been made. The Hall has been granted by the Natives for school purposes for another period of twelve months free of charge, and school will be resumed as usual after the holidays. Suitable outbuildings are being»erected by the Commissioner for the children. The buttermilk craze has laid hold of Sydney as with talons. Some of the tea rooms and all the lea-ling hotels now have buttermilk on their menus and in their bars. Men especially are making a practice of "a morning buttermilk," and those consumers in whom imagination is strong will tell you that they feel like new men since they began to take the liquor that destroys the old age microbe. It was stated, on the authority of a telegram from the Chief Judge of the Native Land Court, just before the holidays, that a sitting of the Native Land Court would be held at Te Kuiti on January 7th, and quite a number of people who had business to put through attended at Te Kuiti on the date mentioned, only to be disappointed. Apparently, the sitting had not been gazetted and no notice of the fact had been given to the public. It is understood that a sitting of the Court will be held on February Ist. Interviewed at Gisborne, the Hon. A. T. Ngata said that although short, it had been a very important legisla- | tive session, and with the placing of the Native Land Act upon the Statute Book he looked with confidence to the future for the solution of the difficult native land problem. The seSsion has been one of sunshine and storm. He had never seen fnembers' tempers so brittle. The stonewall over the Reeves item had been the means of greatly consolidating the Minisetrial party. As to next session, it was not, he said, the present intention to hold it a day earlier than usual.

Some of the people who "go on the land" display remarkable ignorance of the profession they are about to take up. At the last meeting of the Wellington Land Board,, the Commissioner (Mr James Mackenzie) told an amusing story illustrative of this. A man, he said, had.just taken a piece of land,, and ope day a surveyor said to him, '"That's a fine septiqn of yoifrs; there's a l"t of kahikatea on ft." "Is that so?" was ttye reply. "J must get a gun; it will help-to keep the pot boiling." Evidently the settler thought the Maori name for white pine was that of some kind of game bird.