Rarotongans Commence to Plant Tomato Crops

Plant Tomato Crops.

From Our Own Correspondent.

Rarotonga, Feb. 27.

SHORTLY, native growers will be erecting their wooden platforms— long, nanow benches raised up a foot or so oft the ground—on which loamy soil will be placed.

These are the beds for raising tomato plants. Later, the young shoots will be transplanted to large areas—in many instances cleared patches in the midst of thick, bush.

On these tomato cultivations, the native will labour with the patience of the Chinese coolie. His plantings will be set out in perfectly straight rows, evenly spaced. In due course, he will cut long sticks from the bush— straight and of even thickness —and proceed to stake up the plants.

For string, he will go to the Purau tree and strip it of its bark. When his tomato patch is in bearing, it will be as neat and trim and as well cared for as the vegetable gardens of those won derful tillers of the soil —the Chinese.

But his market (New Zealand) is some 1,800 miles distant, so that he must pick the fruit at the stage where

it is fairly well matured, but not sufficiently advanced to show signs of ripening.

The fruit boats arrive, sometimes once and sometimes twice monthly.

Despite his careful regard to the time for transplanting, the weather may push his tomatoes forward too rapidly or perhaps too slowly, so that the fruit steamer arrives either just too early or too late for his picking.

When this happens, he must simply allow his crop to go to waste. There is no alternative means of disposal.

We sometimes hear it mentioned that the native is lazy. Yet, at times, his hard work is about as worth while as digging post holes and filling them in again.