From Cattle To

Timber

N. Hebrides Enterprise

VILA, March 3.

ABOUT a year ago, the former British plantation known as Fysh Estate, situated at St. Philip and St. James Bay (commonly called “Big Bay”) on the island of Espiritu Santo, in the New Heb rides, was purchased by French interests and formed into a company called “Societe Agricole et d’Elevage.”

It proposed to go in for stock-breeding on a large scale, and for this purpose it brought over stockmen from New Cale donia. The climate of Big Bay, however, is notoriously unhealthy, and one of the stockmen died there, and others had to be taken to hospital.

The stockraising project seems now to be in abeyance, but an offshoot of the company has been formed and is known as the “Exploitation Porestiere de la Societe Agricole et d’Elevage.” It pro poses to go in for timber-cutting on the east and north coasts of Espiritu Santo, and has acquired a quantity of machinery suitable for this purpose.

It is known that rosewood, along with other marketable timber, exists in the locallity but the stands are small and it remains to be seen whether the extraction of such timber will be a paying proposition.

It will be remembered that the Ameri cans cut and used large quantities of local timber in their various construc tions; but the Americans, of course, were a military and not a commercial organisa tion.

The wet season has been in full swing in Suva. Recently 16 inches of rain were recorded between Friday and Sunday night.