Of Tropical

Some Of The Joys

Agriculture

A correspondent of “The Mel bourne Herald,” recently described the extraordinary difficulties in troduced and indigenous, which be set the Lever coconut-growing enter prise in the British Solomon Islands.

The main trouble, of course, is lack of labour. The BSI natives are like other Islanders—they have neither incentive nor inclination to work hard; and the authorities will not permit the introduction of Asiatic workers. But there are other head aches : Owing to absence of fresh meat, the early planters brought in cattle to eat the weeds around the coco nut palms and provide Sunday dinners. But in the steamy heat the cattle died.

Crossing shorthorn with zebu was the answer to that. But the result ing crossbreed needed something more than weeds in his diet. Com pany scientists evolved a tropical clover.

Then the thriving animals had to be used only sparingly for weeding because their hooves packed the earth and killed the palms by in ducing in the palms “wet feet.”

To speed pollination of the palms

the company introduced bees. In the hot rains the bees died.

To control vines, which were over running some estates, the company introduced goats. The goats died.

Autopsies revealed that they were poisoned through eating a local plant. Only then did the company learn that for generations the natives had caught fish by poison ing streams with the sap of the plant.

Until the 1930’s a moth was damaging palms. On scientific ad vice the company imported mynah birds to eat the moths. But iguanas raided the mynah’s nests and ate both eggs and baby mynahs. A hunting campaign was waged against iguanas and now mynahs flourish and moths are rare.

At this stage the blood-sucking hornfly attacked company cattle herds. Parasites and “friendly ants” coped with the hornfly—after vast research.