Fiji Planters Need

the Good Years

PLANTERS who grow their copra in more meteorologically predict : able parts of the South Pacific an Fiji, probably have little idea the natural anxiety that attends e barometer-gazing months, De mber to April, in that area.

Like many others who have never id first-hand experience of them, have always imagined that a irricane would be something in e nature of an entertaining spec cle —once, anyway.

Lwo weeks in Naitauba, in the ,u Group of Fiji, cured me of that. >t because we experienced a hur lane in that period, but because was able to appreciate, for the St time, the real economic tragedy at a hurricane can mean, rhe last hurricane occurred there 1948 and this is

i first year of full Dduction follow l it. On parts of aita u b a, the iture coconuts, as result of that ►w, are now so isted out of align nt that they look though they have e n stirred up h a giant stick 3 have no re ablance to the lal neat lines of ntation - planted onuts. ?he amount of r astation caused a plantation can calculated by the nber of coconut nds that are de 3yed. am told that if coconut loses all fronds, then it I need to make more before it . again bear nuts i time, a period about 2 years. It I be some years re before it is in in full bear . It is unlikely, course, that even ad hurricane will v all the fronds all the trees, damage is ays sufficient to atly reduce the put for several are years, mall wonder n, that the raters of these rt s are avid mers to weather

adcasts and,

ing heard the ally dire predic ts of Suva radio,

rush to their own barometers to see if anything untoward is hap pening nearer home.

It is debatable whether predic tions Qf eyil are any better received when delivered in a bright manner but tbe tragedienne accents of the £ who acquaints Fiji of what it might expect in the way of no .t make listeners feel any better, either, Those weeks were weather freaks and the forecast came in only two varieties, bad. and worse, Either a tropical depression of moderate (or low or high) intensity was converging on Fiji from the north and west; or it was “moving across Fiji to the east.” The out look was for “showers.” Or “changeable weather.” Those showers were usually something akin to what would be called a cloud-burst in more temperate zones; and changeable weather, In that period anyhow, was simply the

Ixture as before high winds from e north, grey v and, of course, in.

Phis was not ifined to Lau. It is the same in ;va, and on the rth-west coast, n d Australia, w Hebrides and ewhere.) Per ps I w a s the n a h —on the Dining I left va it was mag icent; at Nadi was truly Nadi ather; hot and my and not a ud in the sky. low, with my larture and the I of April in it, perhaps my inds out in Lau i uncross their ;ers until the x t hurricane son —and begin vatch the level their water ks instead, i v i n g on a ra producing ad in Fiji does, many respects lify for that zh abused

a, paradise. But from an lomic point of view, planters ■e deserve every advantage a 1 year can give them in order nake up for the years of ad ity. lanters in Fiji have two eternal its that their brethren in New nea know nothing about. One nrricanes; the other is income —J.T.

Charming Lautoka Bride

This happy wedding: photo was taken at the end of last year, after the marriage of Miss Evelyn Waddingham, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Wadding ham, of Lautoka, Fiji, to Mr. Keith Ussher (left). Mr. Fred Ussher. the bride groom’s brother, is shown right.