Notes and Comments.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 179, 18 March 1902, Page 3

Notes and Comments.

If, oQ.th6.wlu>.lQi Ne>yZt!ii!and producers have not made the most of. THB the South African markets poultry poultry breeders, especially industry. t j 1036 j n Canterbury, have not been blind to their own interests Mr Hyde, Government Poultry Expert, ia moat enthusiastic over the prospects of the trade. Interviewed the other dayby a representative of the Otago 1 Daily Times, Mr Hyde said that, although in Victoria, the export of poultry was reckoned among tiie most valuable of that colony’s minor industries, he had no doubt that in b few years New Zealand would hold the premier position in Australasia. He' pointed out that we have not the great heat nor the innumerable insect pests which make poultry raising in' Australia, so difficult. Consequently our breeders raise a larger percentage of the birds they hatch, and these are of hotter quality. Several other advan tsges which New Zealand exporters have over their Australian brethren were detailed by Mr Hyde. He pointed out that our shippers paid 60s per ton; in Victoria the charge was 70s per ton. Here the depot charge covered railage, in Australia it did not, Then owing to our better system of packing, we get thirty more birds te the ton than they, do in Victoria, and information to band from the Cape states that our system of packing was the best adopted anywhere. One thing the expert considered should be changed was buying birds by the pair irrespective of weight or condition, and thus growers were not encouraged to raise large plump birds. However a change in this matter has commenced to come about as a Wellington company have adopted the system of buying both birds and eggs by the pound- i According to Mr Hyde it takes no more to raise heavy breeds such, as Plymouth Rocks, Wyndottes or Langshans than it does to raise light fowls like Leghorns. It is almost impossible to raise too many fowls, and the boom in poultry farming in New Zealand is not likely to burst.

Major Antill, who is about to return to \ South Africa, speaking same in New South Wales, for said :—“ Give every man riflemen, a rifle —the best that money can buy—give him a pair of glasses also, and let him shoot wallabies, but never at a target, and you have material like the Boers, and then you need no 1 permanent organisation,” New Zealand as a whole has no wallabies, though we have them innumbetsnearWaimate. Still we have millions of acres of waste land on ■ mountain sides all over New 1 ’ Zealand where some other animals might be introduced. In fact New Zealand is well provided in this respect, as she seems to be in most others. In many cases Land Boards in various parts ckthe colony advertise for lease large areas of back block sheep country at a few pence per acre. Surely this land would be better employed rearing game for our riflemen to shoot even if only herds of wild goats. There are dozens of different sorts of deer and some of these could be found to flourish in all parts of the colony whereeyer there was the protection of great hills. Deer already introduced have thriven ezceedingly well, and there is no reason to suppose they would not do so all over the colony. Then wild sheep afford excellent sport. Oh our mountains the animals would have the most difficult country m the world and stalking them would exercise all the best qualities of a soldier. There is an old saying that no one is better fitted for the army than the soldier, but the experienced deerstalker would go one better. If these reserves were established they should be kept for the exclusive use of volunteers and cadets who would be allowed the use of their rifles. Stalking deer, our volunteers would acquire a skill and training that could not be got in any other way, and that would be for the country’s good. At the present time there are numbers of young men in this district who are keen shots and who would take a verygreat interest in sports of all kinds, and who are yet not volunteer. Such regulations as suggested above would draw all such into volunteer corps, ashy these means they would have the use of a first class weapon. Cadet corps, well armed with light rifles should be encouraged. The rabbits would do for the boys to get their hands in and their spirits up, and then a few days on the hills after- bigger game would create enthusiasm enough to last them and their friends all the year round ; it would call them out of doors to practise at every opportunity, and with a force that no law oould dictate. Perhaps not one per cent of the men of Switzerland ever shot a ehamois in all their lives, but they all admired the ability to do so, which begat the ambition, and that led the fashion, so that now, as a race, they are the best shots in the Vbrlfl. Artillery will play a great part ion good roads, but good riflemen ,on their native hills could play their'parts'like the Boers, and their very name would suggest a costly task for the conquest of New Zealand.