Vegetable Production in

New Guinea What Was Done by the Australian Army

PROOF that the coastal areas of New Guinea can grow good vegetables, in overwhelming quantity, was sun plied to the Australian authorities dur ing the past three years by Lieutenant T. A. Olsson and his brother, Staff-Ser geant J. C. Olsson.

Before the coming of the Jap, Lieuten ant Olsson was a successful merchant at Wau, TNG. Forced to leave, he joined the Australian Army Service Corps, and was sent to a special duty—namelv, growing vegetables for the Forces. With 14 Europeans and about 100 native labourers, he was established on an area of river-flat, near the Laloki River, about 13 miles from Port Moresby.

He was provided with an irrigation system, which drew six million gallons of water, each week, from the river, to be spread over 120 acres. In other words, the whole of the vast gardens got about one innh of water per acre each week.

Production was phenomenal. They grew French beans, New Guinea “snake” beans. English cabbage. Chinese cabbage ('mostly for salads), lettuce (during the “winter” months), pumpkins, corn, silver beet, water melons, squash, radishes, car rots, beetroot, tomatoes, and many others.

Some of the vegetables were most pro lific. Chinese cabbage produced 40,000 lb. to the acre, in 10 w'eks. Corn pro duced 5.000 lb. of green cobs to the acre.

“If we had been getting the Australian contract price paid in the Northern Territory, we should have been making £lO,OOO per month,” said Lieutenant .Olsson, wistfully.

The armed Services received enormous quantities of green vegetables. The de parture of five 3-ton Army trucks for Port Moresby, laden with vegetables, was a common morning occurrence.

But it was not all plain sailing. There were many pests—infestations of rats and visitations by the stink bug were com mon—but the real enemy was the green vegetable bug, which attacked and des troyed everything it coula reach. Experts of all kinds tried to find a compound to beat this pest, but nothing was really effective. Lieutenant Olsson kept it in check by putting on lines of natives to go across the gardens at frequent intervals, picking the bugs off the plants into buckets. Towards the end, however, the experts were confident they could check the bug with DDT.

Lieutenant Olsson was sent to control new Army gardens at Erap, near Nadzab, in the Markham Valley, in 1944. This place was higher and colder, with a beautiful sandy loam, and here he was able to get even more satisfactory pro duction. In 1945, he was transferred to Lae, to take charge of gardens on the Busu River, at the back of Lae; and this enterprise was well under way when Lieutenant Olsson came to Australia, on leave. Vegetable-growing conditions at Lae were similar to those near Port Moresby.

He now has received his discharge, and hopes to return to the Morobe district of New Guinea, at an early date.

Mrs. P. Hufton, who was well known in Rabaul and Port Moresby before the war —when she was on the staff of Burns Philp & Co., Ltd. —returned to Port Moresby in January, to work again for the Big Firm.