NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9398, 19 March 1909, Page 6

NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Mr J. A. Kinsella, late Dairy Commissioner in New Zealand, has resigned his position of Obief Dairy Expert to the Western Australian Government to' represent a Sydney firm in the Northern districts of New South Wales and Queensland. An old New Zealand hoy, Mr O. W. B. Littlejohn, has gained the Rhodes Scholarship for Victoria for 1909. He is a son of Mr W. S. Littlejohn, M.A., who was for some years principal of the Nelson College, and is now principal of the Soots College, Melbourne. Mr t O. W. B. Littlejohn is only 19 years of age, yet he has had a brilliant career at the Nelson and Scots Colleges, and also at the Melbourne University. A contributor to a Northern paper supplies what he states to bo an infallible means of destroying the ragwort pest. He states: “Common salt is its deadly enemy. The way to apply it is to cut the plant off level with the ground (not to dig the roots out) and apply the salt to the ont part liberally. The salt thus sinks into the neck and fine fibrous roots of the plants and destroys its vitality. I have tried many ways of dealing with it bat the above is the only effective one. Digging or*hoeing it out only makes it worse.”

At the annual meeting of Christchurch Beautifying Association, a letter was.read from Mr S. Hurst • Seager, suggesting that the Govrenment should he asked to forego the paltry sums which they now received from the advertisements on the railway stations with a view to converting the stations, especially the country ones* into beanty spots. In apologising for his absence, hewrota that he would have liked to have moved that the Minister of Railways he requested to consider advisability of removing placards from the country stations and of affording the railway employees every inducement to plant native flowers and sbrnba common to the respetoive districts in and aronnd the stations. A onrions place indeed is the Saltan of Turkey’s kitchen, more like a fortress than a place where one would expect the Imperial meals to be cooked, for it has an armourplated door, and is fitted with looks which can only be opened by one man. As each coarse is prepared It is placed on a silver dish, which is then sealed by the “kelardjhi,” the official responsible' for the Saltan’s ‘food, and then a black velvet cover is pat over the dish to keep it warm. A procession of people follow the meal into the Imperial chamber, where the seals are broken in the Sultan’s presence and the “kelardjhi” is often required to tastb one or other of the dishes. One thousand pounds covers the yearly cost of the Sultan’s food, which consists mainly of entrees and boiled eggs, bnt to feed his household and pay all domestic expenses reduces his annual income of £2,000,000 by £14,005 a week.