Agriculture

Gaol Gardens And Tropical

From Our Own Correspondent

T„„ Port Moresby, Jan. 2.

HE gaol gardens, situated on the banks of the Laloki River, 10 miles outside Port Moresby, which for the past two years have been under the manage ment of Mr. George Gough, a trained agriculturist from Queensland, have been extended and improved, so that the areas under cultivation, from the river banks across the flats, comprise over 200 acres.

The crops, which yielded 200 tons last year, consist of sweet-potatoes, yams, maize, bananas, pawpaws, and pine apples. Each week, after they are dis tributed to the various Government in stitutions—European and Native hos pitals, gaols, etc.—for which they are intended, there is a surplus which is sold to the European residents of the town. Several have regular orders for fruit, which far excels that previously bought from natives at the door.

Those who maintained that the soil near Port Moresby is unsuitable for agri culture have been converted.

The gaol gardens serve not only as a food supply, but also as a practical de monstration of cultivation methods, and a source of supply to the villages of seed and roots for planting.

Mr. T. J. Monaghan, who for four years has been in charge of the European School, Port Moresby, has been trans ferred to take charge of the public school at Mareeba, Queensland.

Mr. J. Elliot, who has been in Fiji since 1936 as a member of the staff of the Bank of New Zealand. Suva, will return to N.Z. late in January.