The Editors' Mailbag

More About Those Cedars

The Ecuador or South American cedar (Cedrela Odorata), which has been suggested as suitable for planting in South Pacific Islands (see PIM, April), develops a strong root system which enables it to resist fierce wind forces. Dr. Peter Holst writes from Guayaquil, -Ecuador, that these trees prefer humid, tropical and sub-tropical climates, that they do not grow well in swampy or sour soil, and that they do not like night frost or pro longed spells of hot dry winds. He points out that the timber is valued the world over, and that a matured tree would yield timber valued to day at 150 US dollars.

Wewak-Hollandia Service?

“There is much passing to and fro between The Netherlands and Australia, and friendly communica tion between Western New Guinea and the Australian Administration in Papua and Eastern New Guinea,” writes a Brisbane friend, in bad tempered strain.

“Yet it is easier to travel from Sydney to Hollandia (chief town of Dutch New Guinea), or from Sydney to Wewak (most westerly town of Australian New Guinea), than it is to travel from Wewak to Hollandia, although the towns are only a short distance apart.

“In other words, if we are to make common cause in New Guinea —as assuredly we shall—why is there no means of easy transport between the two large Territories? Why no air service between, say, Madang and Hollandia?”

Does Anyone Know?

Commander William Burrows, of Suva, whose thirst for shipping in formation is quenchless, has dis covered that,in 1885, a screw ves sel of 580 tons, with some medium armament, and rigged as a three mast schooner, was ordered in Lon don on behalf of the Colony of Victoria. She was launched at Limehouse Dockyard; armament was supplied by Woolwich; she was named the Victoria —and then there is no further record of her.

Does anyone know whether this ship ever arrived in the South Pacific? And, if so, under what flag?

An Editorial Grovel

A correspondent in Suva is quite right; There rarely has been a sillier typographical error in the PIM than the caption to a photo on P a &e 27 of the June issue.

Mr. D. R, A. Eden, of Samoa, was shown en route to Europe, with some specimens of the famous cocoa tree which he has developed in his Samoan plantations, after endless

study and experiment. And the caption read, “cuttings from his famous new coconut tree”! The error was obvious—yet it got past five different people whose job it is to check and correct. Apologies to everyone concerned.

The Fijian View Point

An interesting note from our old friend, Ratu Tiale W. T. Vuiyasawa, who is Roko Tui Cakaudrove, at Somosomo, Fiji: “You know that there has been a lot of talk over our soldiers being in Malaya. Some say that, as we are only a small number of people, we should not be asked to send away so many as a battalion of our young men, to fight in Asia.

“We Fijians have not joined in this talk. All we know is that our young men have gone there with our goodwill and blessing, to do a spot of work for our Queen and the British Raj. Whether the Indians go or not is not our concern. What we wish is that our lads should stay there until the job is done —nothing else matters.

“We do this as a token of our appreciation of the care and protec tion given us by the British Crown for well nigh a century.”

That is good talk, by a man thoroughly competent to express the Fijian viewpoint.

Elbow Room for Coconuts?

CONTRARY to cur paragraph on the subject in April PIM, a few

people have sufficient faith in the future of coconuts to plant up new areas of them: Mr. R. Best of Deos Plantation, Bougainville, writ ing in June says that on their planf tation they have recently completed the sQoth acre of new coconut planting since the war.

The new plantings have beer| made at far wider than usual spacl ing—33 ft.—to permit interplanting of other crops and in order that the coconuts should not have to expend all their vigour on growing upwards, Mr. Best says that he has yet to see any plantation palms comparl favourably with the haphazard groups of native palms for produc-* tion. On Deos, 2,600 palms scattered about produced 360 bags of copra during 1952—he believes that this was because they were exposed to wind and sunlight and did not have to attain excessive height in competition for the sun with their fellows.

Well, it’s a new theory, and one that probably has something to it where space has not to be coni sidered.

Still on Top!

A keen interest in Pacific affairs is still evinced by Mrs. Olive McMiles, of Wyong, NSW, despite the rude buffetings of fate. “I have had a double fracture of the right shoulder, a fracture of the spina a snake bite and recurrent attack! of asthma,” she writes. “But I am still on top of the world and here! with my sub to the PIM.” Mrs!

McMiles was formerly Miss Olive Leembruggen, and had charge of a hospital in Suva for some years. I