World’S Smallest

Plantation

At Sohano, Bougainville, they will tell you that the smallest copra plantation in the world is off the tip of Sohano, in Buka Passage. It grows one palm. Here it is, with the tip of Sohano on the right and the Bougainville mainland across Buka Passage on the left. According to the story, there was a pretty good party going on at a plantation on the mainland many years ago, and towards the end of the festivities one of the guests—a government man— decided it was time for him to start his own plantation and get where the money was. He took a sprouting nut, swam the passage to the islet, planted the nut, and returned to the mainland the way he had come, to the cheers of his friends. That’s the story, anyhow. Certainly the lone palm seen today is proof of something!—SI.