Suitable Place for Ducks

AFTER reading a Fiji Depart ment of Agriculture report on farming possibilities in the Railevu Crown Freehold, south-west Taveuni, one could be excused for believing that the Department had deliberately despatched its survey team to the most unlikely piece of farming country in the entire Colony.

Results of the survey, says the re port in grand departmental under statement, are “not very hopeful” from the point of view of develop ing the area for agriculture. How unhopeful may be judged from the fact that “in six miles, 150 creeks were crossed, many of them in ravines up to 200 feet deep . . . and often only a few yards apart, con verting the country into a series of razor-back ridges.” Rainfall in the area is estimated at “probably be tween 350 and 400 inches.”

Very little timber of commercial value was seen—and only accessible by building a six-mile road with numerous bridges. There are no harbours. But there is plenty of other vegetation, e.g. Fiji cane “whose long vines with poisonous thorns tore repeatedly at the travellers’ legs.” Much time was spent “crawling in the dark round rocky outcrops with steep faces and precarious footholds.” After a little of that, the team reached Lavena village where “they remained two

days recovering from exhaustion, and to give time for cuts and sores to heal”!

Though it has little to do with farming, in the ordinary sense, the team “found some compensation in the magnificent scenery” . . . Such as “the dozens of waterfalls . . . many of them up to 150 feet in height.”

It is doubtful whether there wi be a rush to take up the ferti lands of Railevu, though they see] to hold certain duck-farming po; sibilities.

U Mr. Jim Borron, Mago Island, Fi spent a period in a Sydney hospit; in December.