Profitable Roadside

Planting

Big road-building schemes are under way in Fiji, and it seems likely that within a few years the principal towns and settlements will be linked by first class motor highways.

Writing in The Fiji Times, Mr. A.

Wastall urges that while road building operations are proceeding, opportunity should be taken to plant beside the highway the tree known as the Abys sinian banana. The fruit of this tree is useless, but it grows easily, and its trunk attains a size of two feet in thickness, within a comparatively short time. Its fibre, when pulped, makes excellent papier, and there are valuable bv-products. Mr. Wastall urges that if this planting were scientifically carried nut along the main roads of Fiji, the Government, in a few years, would have a huge amount of material from which it could make a valuable paper pulp, for which there is always a good market. Thus, he argues, the Fiji Government could ensure to itself a regular source of revenue.