North Island trees flourishing

THE State forest plantations at Rotorua are reported to be doing remarkably well (states the Post). So that the work of the past may not be undone, the State Forest Service has taken precautions to prevent loss by fire, and, with this end in view, lookout stations will be used for the purpose of locating any outbreak early, so that it may be dealt with before it reaches unmanageable proportions.

Lieutenant McIntosh in a flying accident in West Australia caused the whole Australian people a profound shock. McIntosh was a rough headed and humorous Scotsman, and he endeared himself to thousands by his quaint speeches during the days when he and Parer, after their wonderful flight from London to Australia, were receiving heroworship.

It will be remembered that they started out from England secretly because their old bus was such a crazy contrivance that the aviation authorities would not give them permission to even fly the Channel in it. From then on Parer (a small bottle-shouldered Australian, born of Greek parents) and McIntosh (the big, roughhewn Scotsman) crashed at least a score of times. They literally bumped their way across the world.

Eight or ten times they were regarded as down and out. They crashed so badly in Burma that they were both weeks in hospital, but they always recovered and they always

repaired the crazy old bus and got another start. They crashed once or twice more in the East Indies, but somehow they got across. They flew 500 miles over sea at last and fluked Darwin in the dark by a miracle, and just as their last drop of petrol had gone. It is probably the most remarkable performance in all the history of aviation.