TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3046, 17 November 1908, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

BEEKEEPING. Mr Bray (South Island apiarist) told a "Lyttelton Times" reporter that while beekeeping was a profitable side line for the tarmer, it aided the orchardist greatly. The fertilisation of apple and other fruit blossoms by bees has a marked influence on the future fruit. An imperfectly fertilised blossom would result in an unsymmetrical and partly undeveloped fruit, and the presence of a swarm of bees considerably increased the prospect of producing well-rounded, symmetrical fruit, with an enhanced market value. Bees also saved a large expenditure in resowing clover, as their fertilisation caused the clover to seed and automatically to resow itself.

COST OF LIVING. Speaking at a recent meeting of the Otago Employers' Association a member, in referring to the cost of living, saia: "Ad far as I am aware, hardly a single writer, speaker, or newspaper has touched upon the real solution of the problem—that is, thrift and self-denial. There i 3 no other. Our standard of living is far too high. We number articles of food as necessaries that are not necessaries at all. We spend money on trams, outings and variety entertainments. The bulk of our domestic economy is bad and wasteful. We are becoming luxurious and fastidious in our tastes, and the sooner circumstances force us back to a harder life the better. We are lowering labour from its place of honour, and instead are unduly elevating pleasure and leisure."

CHEAP CABLES. Considerable discussion has taken place recently on the question of cheap cables. It is interesting to nots a few years ago the British and some Continental Governments bought the cables from England to Germany, France, Holland and Belgium, and there was an immediate reduction from 2Jd to 2d per word. The result was that 300,000 more words were sent in the year following the reduction, and the increase of the revenue to the Post Office on this branch of the service was nearly 50 per cent. The reformers maintain that the charges from one country to another should not exceed the combined rates of the two countries. Between England and Ireland, Scotland and Ireland, and the British Isles, the rate is Jd a word. The charge between France and Algeria is less than Jd (five centimes) per word. But the charge from England to France is 2d a word. In Queensland a telegram can be sent 3,000 miles for Id a word. The length of Europe is only 3.400 miles and its breadth 2,400 miles. Ninetyseven per cent, of the cable messages across the Atlantic to America are sent in code. The actual carrying capacity of all the Atlantic cables is 300 million words a year. Only 25 million words are sent, and the rate of Is a word is considered practically prohibitive for domestic and friendly messages.