PUMICE SHOWERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 388, 24 November 1932, Page 2

PUMICE SHOWERS

IRON HUNGER MOST PRONOUNCED IN KAHAROA. BIG TAUPO SHOWER. Speaking to a gathering of T'e Aroha farmers recently, Mr. C. R. Taylor, of the Agricultural Department, Rotorua, said there were eight pumice soil-forming showers concerned in land lying in the central part of the North Island, viz., Egmont, Mairoa, Taupo Ngauruhoe, Tongariro, Kaharoa, Tarawera and Tirau. Of these eight pumice showers, only two Taupo arid Kaharoa, give fise to the condition in stock commonly known as bush-sickness or iron hunger, the Kaharoa being the worst of the two. All other pumice showers are fairly high in available iron, and, consequently stock are not troubled with iron mal-nutrition. The Taupo shower was ejected from what is now: known as Lake Taupo and it is estimated by the geologists that something like five and a half million cubie miles of material was ejected from that souree. The areaj covered by the shower oecupies roughly, 8600 square miles, or 5,500,000 acres, and only a eomparatively small P'art is under cultivation, largely owing to th'e fear of iron hunger. The Atiamuri experiment of feeding sheep with limonite was carried out on this shower country. The Kaharoa shower is a more recent one, erupted from some source just south of Lake Rototi, and extends from north of Tauranga to east of Whakatane, and inland to Te Whaiti.

Dog Kills 500 Sheep. The Dominion states that since last June the Belmont sheepfarmers h'ave lost some 5Q0 lambs and ewes through the activities- of a "killer" dog, which has at last be'en caught. The dpg displayed unpsual cjjnning, for he neyer operated on moonlight nights and | never before /ll p.m. nor after 3.30 a.m. Countless watches weije set, but with'out success because of the wide country over which the animal worked and the uncertainty of his visitations. Finally he was caught in a trapi set by Mr. W. A. Cottle, and proved to be a ' cross between a terrier and a sheep * dog, scareely more than tyro years old. The animal wore a collar without ' a registration plate> and his owner is unknown.