Norfolk Island.

Luxury Liner, Beans and Mr. Greene.

STRATHAIRD Day on Norfolk Island was a great success.

After being hunted for the greater part of the voyage from Sydney by a gale that put half the passenger list to bed, seasick, the vessel dropped anchor off our island on Boxing morning in a blue, unruffled calm —not a ripple on the reef. Coming slowly in, she was a mag nificent sight; while visitors reported that, from the ship, the island presented a never-to-be-forgotten picture. Remote . . . solitary . . . dreamlike; hillside and valley picked out in every shade of green; the low mountain top and tall pines dark against the sun-flushed sky.

The ship anchored a mile or more off shore and over a thousand persons were carried to and fro —transhipped, as the tide went out from the P. and O. life boats to our local whaleboats without disorder or a splash of water on pretty frock or dashing beach pyjamas—and, after a crowded day of novelty and in terest they left again at nightfall; sail ing out into the still, warm dark, ablaze from stem to stern with flood lights—a sight that we simple souls ashore will never forget; while, for the 1500 voy agers who made the trip, Norfolk Island will live, a green and fairy land set for ever in a windless, cloudless, blue and boundless sea.

Mr. Greene Is Merciful.

We have also received publicity in America where Mr. Marc T. Greene — who recently visited the South Seas, leaving a trail of wounded susceptibili ties behind him —has published an illus trated article on Norfolk in “The New York Sun.” Making allowance for jour nalistic license and the grouch Mr.

Greene apparently feels against all white residents in native lands, he dealt with us more kindly than we had anticipated.

He speaks of the island as being “one of the most delightful of sea-girt isles, in natural beauty unsurpassed anywhere in the South Seas; tranquil and aloof from the world, with a most amiable climate and a harmonious atmosphere.” We do not work, we spend our days in idle sport, and the oversea settlers as a whole are not a desirable type and have brought nothing worth while to the is land population; but such slight criti cism as that should be helpful and wholesome, and we should profit by it.

Our National Wealth.

On the evening of January 4, a meet ing of such of us as do languidly till the soil was convened in the Rawson Hall to listen to an address by a Mr. Rumsey, partner in a seed business in Sydney, Member of the Royal Horticultural So ciety and a world-wide traveller and in vestigator into horticultural conditions in other countries.

Mr. Rumsey, who was here at the in vitation of our Planters’ Association, read a most interesting paper and, in the course of it, was able to tell us things about our island of which we were ignorant. For instance, when Cap tain Cook landed here —whenever he did land here —he discovered in the dense vegetation that clothed the island to the waterline, bananas that were indigenous and of good qutlity. In view of the fact that we are situated in about the ulti mate degree of latitude that will grow

bananas, that is most interesting and points, one would say, either to an earlier and forgotten occupation, or to a passing visit of natives bound elsewhere.

Mr. Rumsey wondered if, possibly, the descendants, so to speak, of those or iginal palms still lurked unknown upon the island and might be discovered and fostered till we had a unique variety to put upon the market.

The real business of the evening, how ever, was the development and market ing of our bean crop, grown for export as seed. Our Canadian Wonder Beans have a particularly good reputation overseas and it is anticipated that the harvest now under way will reap good prices and bring a temporary prosperity to the island: but Mr. Rumsey earnestly advised us, in future, to cut out the Can adian Wonder and concentrate upon the newer variety, “Tweed Wonder,” which is becoming very popular with market gardeners and smallholders. The Tweed Wonder resists blight and disease to a very great extent and the green bean travels well.

Passing on from beans, our visitor touched upon other likely products suit able to our soil and climate and recom mended us to plant out groves of the Australian Nut “Macadamensis” or something like that; a sort of cross be

tween a barcelona and a brazil nut in texture and flavour, and a large three cornered barcelona in shape. Increas ingly popular with confectioners and such folks it is destined to oust all im ported nuts.

We listened breathlessly, with fortune at last in sight—until it was revealed to us that the tree took something like ten years to come into full bearing and then we might hope to get sixpence a pound for a crop per tree—twenty-five trees to the acre—of about sixty pounds. Then our interest waned perceptibly and we occupied ourselves in stealthy surmises as to where we might all expect to find ourselves in ten years if present condi tions continue.

At the close of Mr. Rumsey’s dis course, Mr. W. A. Holman, some time Premier of New South Wales and now a Member of the Federal House, rose in a practiced manner to his feet from among the audience and paid us the stereotyped compliments upon our fair isle, our high standard of intelligence and beauty and so on, assuring us of his interest in and furtherance of our fortunes. We lapped it up like cream, and parted from Mr.

Holman with reluctance, wending our way homeward with a very high opinion of his personal qualifications . . .and so to bed.