Turned to Good Account
pp. 96-97 · Read in the full issue
Mt. Lamington Devastation Could Be Turned to Good Account Reader Sees it as 500,000 Acre Grazing Proposition
According to some Rabaui residents, the story that they were anxious to leave the town en masse after they had flown over the devastated area of Mt.
Lamington, is just a figment of Ad ministration wishful-thinking.
Far from being impressed with the devastation, as simple devasta tion, some came back from the ride feeling that it could be turned to good use. One reader has written as follows: “There are half a million acres there of fertilised land just waiting for a crop. The growth is fantas tic and although we were there only a comparatively short time after the eruption, there already was evi dence that the deposit from the volcano is full of plant food.
“All the crops that remained in the ground show remarkable re covery. Bananas were eight and 10 feet high and where couch grass had been planted before the erup tion, the ground was covered with a thick mat of grass nine or 10 inches thick.
“The area is level, although there 1 is, of course, a general slope down to the sea from the volcano. But the blast, or whatever happened, uprooted all the trees, and root holes have since been filled in by erosion. If grass were planted it would probably be necessary for it to be done from a plane.
“But it is potentially a wonderful grazing proposition. I should say that with the rainfall they get there, it would be possible to run about one beast to the acre.
“However, I do not expect that the Administration will do anything with it and in two or three years it will be covered with dense secondary growth which will be costly to clear.”
OUR reader is probably correct on both counts—that is, that if they act quickly something could be done with the area, but that probably nothing will be done.
Government instrumentalities are not given to quick action or the turning of tragedy to some account.
Mt. Lamington and all that goes with it is now regarded as a tambu area. Or a horrible example with which to threaten the recalcitrant residents of Rabaul who seem deter mined to stick to their harbour and their volcanoes.