[?]Uestion Ahead Of

Ci Citrus Industry

BYEING the increase of Cook U Islands citrus exports to New I Zealand with some concern, a bminion grower has suggested that £ Government should establish a nnery in the Cooks to “help obtain ferseas markets for orange juice.”

But, as Fiji’s Agriculture Depart ed has already reported, there is lot more to it than merely find g a juice market overseas.

It may be that the two kinds of Binges grown in the Cooks are iite unsuited to canning, and the issibility of a lucrative market,

even given suitable juice, appears to be poor in the face of competition from South Africa, the West Indies, and elsewhere.

Probably no one is more aware of this than the New Zealand growers, who are concentrated mainly round Tauranga, Bay of Plenty. t After 43 hours in a rubber dinghy, two survivors of a crew of five of a four-motored American aircraft which made a forced landing in the sea 1,000 miles west of Honolulu, were picked up by a ship late in September. The aircraft was carry ing a military cargo to Japan via Wake Island, when three motors failed.

' Mr. Karlo Andersen, manager of the privately owned Manuae Island coconut plantation in the Cook Islands, reported at the end of August that no rain had fallen at the island for three months. Good drinking water, however, is avail able from a well.