KIRITEHERE-MOEATOA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 503, 25 September 1912, Page 3

KIRITEHERE-MOEATOA.

i Own Correspondent

The phonograph as a mode of entertainment has made great progress in the country during the past few years. The dismal. screeching machine of the past has given place to one which reproduces the human voice with a moderate degree of clearness and tone. One can enjoy real civilise_d music at a cost of a few shillings, and without having to suffer to listen to the efforts of a well intentioned, though struggling, amateur. Subcsribers on private telephone lines often listen to "tinned music" of the phonograph variety over miles of wire. Taken in moderate doses it is a pleasant way of passing an evening, providing the operator has an ear to pick only those pieces that carry well, and have the right pitch for retransmission. As my friend, the pungatown poet, expresses it: — O'er the sand by the distance mellowed. Gomes the sound of a phonograph, Singing strange songs to the night wind: Melodies that cry, sing sweetly, and laugh. Thinking of gardening has recalled my mind to native industries and how to utilise various waste products of the garden, and other such like trifles, now generally running to Bee.d. Home cigars may be made by selecting partly dried tobacco leaves, cut after the plant has baen pulled and hung awhile. Cut into shape on a at surface roll and paste the outside wrapper on, and then pack away to season for a month or two. When seasoned in a dry ventilated place for a time, the vegetable odour of cremated torore will vanish. Invite your friends —a good thing is best enjoyed in company. If the cigars have become toodry take a card board box and put a damp flannel on the bottom, some paper on that, and a few cigars on top. Some people, however, like a dry smoke. Use up the damp ones because a damp cigar will not keep indefinitely. Keep a few until the member for the district comes round, then give him one to smoke; just to set the fashion: he isn't'likely to forget your part of the district after that. He might even talk of subsidising the industry—to encourage it:

"There was just a gentle simmer From the torore that he smoked," etc,