NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4431, 25 March 1930, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

The farthest distance a ship can sail from land is 1200 miles. This may seem .queer, for the Atlantic Ocean is more than 4000 miles wide, and the Pacific even wider than that. But there are islands in these oceans, and never can a ship he. more than 1200 miles from some point of land. 'The spot of greatest distance from land is in the Pacific Ocean, half-way 'between New Zealand and South America.

Many people, if asked what was the driest place in the world, would plump for Central Australia, where rain fell last year after a drought that had lasted for seven years. They would be wrong (says an English paper), for there are some parts of South America where a seven-years’ drought is nothing, and a man can out the Psalmist’s “three score and ten” without ever seeing a drop of l’ain. Of course, il may rain sometimes. Lord Ernest Hamilton has described the coming of rain in Lima, the capital of Peru, during a visit he paid there. “We were fortunate enough to be favoured with the only shower which Lima had enjoyed for 70 years,” he writes in his book, “Forty Years On.” “For five minutes it rained solid tropical rain. The terror-strieked inhabitants thought the end of the world had come.” But if America can boast of some of the driest places in the world, it also contains softie of the wettest. Greytown, in Nicaragua, has had as much as 297 inches of rain in a single year. Anyone familiar with the way ragwort has spread in the country districts realises that it is futile for individuals to try and tackle it — except in very small areas that can be constantly supervised. A farmer writing in the Bay of Plenty Times calls attention to the fact that no matter what private owners do the weed always finds harbourage on the vast areas of Crown land where it is left entirely unci is tin-bed and spreads seed for miles around. A farmer makes a very sensible suggestion for dealing with the weed on comprehensive lines. “If noxious weeds are to be kept under control,” he writes, “The power to do so should be vested in the county councils. First, there should be a classification of lands. That portion —and it is considerable —which could not be profitably cleared should be classed as deteriorated land and given to the Lands Board to deal with. The Councils should be given power over the remainder. Individual effort is not. likely to keep ragwort in check, but an authority with power to clear the land when necessary and charge the owner with the cost of work done would be a long way to doing away with the pest. ‘There is also a hope that ragwort may die out; it did at the Patatere Land Company’s two big bush clearings —one at Mamakti and the other on the Raima!.”