Business

Cocoa Is His

Mr. W. M. Middleton, one of New Guinea’s most success

ful and experienced cocoa

growers, has run cocoa and copra plantations on the rich volcanic soil of Karkar Island, near Madang, for the past 35 years.

His property, called Kulili Estates, covers about 2,700 acres. About 2,200 acres are under cocoa trees interplanted with coconuts. The cocoa trees are growing up to 1,100 feet above sea level.

Mr. Middleton arrived in Papua in 1910 and spent several years with a branch of the Bank of New South Wales at Samarai. In World War I he spent nearly four years in the services in Europe and the Middle East.

After working on several Expropriation Board planta tions after the war, he bought Kulili Estates in 1927.

Mr. Middleton is one of the very few private planta tion owners of that period to survive the depression and retain his properties.

With a philosopy of “when money is plentiful, save, and when it is scarce, buy at cheap prices”, he re-invested all of his small profits in replanting cocoa and copra.

Mr. Middleton escaped from Karkar in a small boat a few days before the Japanese cap tured the island in World War 11. He returned about two years later to find most of Kulili destroyed by heavy bombing.

From then onwards, he began the long, slow job of clearing and replanting Kulili, this time putting in more and more cocoa trees.

Today, Kulili vies with New Britain and Bougainville in the production of cocoa. This is a clear indication of the pro gress Mr. Middleton has made since the war.

Mr. Middleton