Untitled

Taranaki Daily News, 26 March 1921, Page 11

The Wellington Post reports that a Karori resident whose lawn was severely attacked by grass grub has been advised by the Agriculture Department of the following remedy : Mix four parts of carbon-bisulphide with one part of phenol, mix well, and dilute one gallon of the mixture .or emulsion with 100 gallons of water. Apply with a watering can. Lime water was suggested as good for bringing many grubs to the surface.

Says the Mercantile Gazette editorially, after commenting on the fallen market for meat and wool : “It can be accepted as axiomatic that with the heavy fall in the values of our primary products there must be recessions in other directions. The inflation has been squeezed out of <the values of these primary products, and so the inflation must be squeezed out of land values and out of wages. If the process of deflation is not helped along in a careful manner there will be trouble, and the trouble would be greatly intensified were any effort made by any section to retard deflation. Deflation is inevitable as it is imperative, and we can make it easy and comfortable in its operation or we can make it serious and decidedly harmful. The point that must be grasped is that deflation must go on and that it is beyond our power to stop it.” It may well be wondered how Europe with its chaotic state c-f finance can actually purchase meat from abroad at this time (says the London correspondent of the Weekly Press). A good deal of business is evidently done by the way of barter, and the following story, which is a true one, will illustrate this in rather striking fashion. The little piece of business in question can hardly be called representative of the general lines of trading, rather more prosaic in character, daily transacted. A certain frozen meat importer had sold a big cargo of frozen meat to parties in France. When it arrived payment in cash was found to be not forthcoming but as the meat was badly needed, and offer was made of a huge stock of danned meats on hand. The importer, after negotiations, closed with the offer —but only accepting the canned meat at his own valuation! His wide connections, however, enabled him to sell the cannefl meat in other parts of Europe, also pretty well at his own price. For much of it he is said to have accepted payment in kind, and the end of the story is that his total profit out of this extraordinary deal was close on five millions sterling, a figure which it is very difficult to credit.