Early Cinchona and Coffee Seed
p. 49 · Read in the full issue
Coffee Seed in Papua
rpHE statement in November “PIM” that Jl the late George Murray, Director of Agriculture in New Guinea (lost in the Japanese invasion) was responsible for the introduction of Cinchona to Cen tral New Guinea is referred to by the Rev. Father Fastre, MSC, formerly at Yule Island, Papua, and now Mission Procurator at Marseilles.
“Mr. Murray succeeded in getting Cinc hona seed in 1936,” writes Father Fastre.
“Ten years before that, in December, 1926, at the request of the Government of Papua, I sent a large quantity of Cinc hona seed to USSR. I got the seed from trees which I had myself planted in the Mafulu district. If Mr. Murray had ap proached me, I could have supplied his requirements, and he need not have gone abroad for seed.
“The New Guinea Administration pro poses to grow tea in the Territory. I twice tried to grow tea in Papua it simply would not grow.
“The first missionaries, in 1885, took one pound of coffee seed into Papua. It grew, and I think—but I am not sure— that most of the coffee produced in Papua came from that seed. I know I have given bags of seed and thousands of plants to Government officials and to private planters.”
The Government of Fiji is to have an Economic Advisor. He is Colonel R. M.
Taylor, who was expected to leave Eng land at the end of April. He has been Deputy Commissioner of the National Savings Committee in the United King dom.