He Would Plant Cedar
p. 36 · Read in the full issue
In The Islands
A REMARKABLE person, Dr.
Peter Holst, is trying to intro duce to suitable islands of the South Pacific the type of cedar which has been established with much success in South America. It is an unusual story.
Peter Holst, a young Danish pharmacist, emigrated to Ecuador in 1909, and there built up a big business. He became interested in afforestation, apparently as a hobby, and revenues from his big chemical and pharmaceutical fac tory gave him the means to pur sue it.
He obtained some large areas of land, and about 20 years ago planted them up with small cedar trees (Cedrela Odorata), the seed of which he had brought from Cuba. It is said that these plan
tations have flourished amazingly, covering large areas with quick growing, healthy forest, and pro viding a reddish timber that is claimed to be vermin-proof, close grained and easily worked.
Dr. Holst’s South American Cedar, as it is called, is now being
planted in many countries, as a commercial proposition; and a firm which is now established in Epd- ; mg, Sydney, and which has been advertising the Cedar in the PIM, claims that it is very suitable for afforestation operations in certain of the Islands.