PRIMITIVE SUGAR CANE

Evening Star, Issue 19894, 16 June 1928, Page 5

PRIMITIVE SUGAR CANE

UNITED STATES EXPEDITION TO EXPLORE NEW GI'INEA. A new aeroplane expedition to th# remote districts of New Guinea has been organised and is fast making headway, according to an announcement from New York. This will be the second exploratory undertaking to this little-known country which has been carried out by means of aircraft. The first was the Stirling expedition, carried out under the direction of Dr Matthew W. Stirling, of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington. The purpose of this undertaking was the study of a race of pigmies in the Nassau Mountain region. The new expedition is being sponsored by the United Ftates Department of Agriculture, and it is to be a step to restore to a profitable basis the domestic sugar cane raising industry of the United States. The aeroplane to bo used in the Department of Agriculture expedition is a now Fairchild cabin monoplane, (lowered with a Pratt and Whitney engine. It will be employed to go into the seldom penetrated interior of New Guinea and bring out primitive types of sugar cane, which will be transplanted to a test garden at_ Port Morsby, on the British side of the island.

Richard Peek, civilian flyer, who was one of the pilots of the Stirling expedition, which lost three men in the jungle interior of New Guinea, has been selected as pilot for the new expedition, which will be headed by Dr K. W. Braudes, of the Department of Agriculture. After a careful study of the problem the Department of Agriculture officials decided that only the aeroplane could serve as a means of quick transportation for the sample sugar, cane trom the plane of its origin to the test gardens. “ The Department of Agriculture,” said Dr Brandos, “ is interested in attempting to bring back to n. profitable basis the domestic sugar industry of the United States, which has been suffering a period of depression due to i educed yields of cane caused by cef' tain diseases of the cane plant. The primitive types of sugar cane, found where the sugar cane plant is indigenous, have been found to resist these diseases to a greater degree than other types, and for this reason it is necessary to investigate all sources of cane varieties where they are found growing under natural conditions. “ This expedition proposes to make a collection of as many types of sugaf cane as can be gathered in New Guinea lor the purpose of testing their reaction to the sugar cane disease.” The expedition is expected to take about six months, or perhaps longer. Feck has already flown from New York to Washington in the new Fairchild ’plane. At Washington he expected to complete all details and pick up Dr Braudes. From the American capital the two will fly across the country to San Francisco, where the ’plane will he placed on hoard a liner bound for Australia. “That country is like nothing else in the world when it comes to flying over it,” said Peck, in alluding to New Guinea. “If you are forced down there you are a sure goner. We will use pontoons and operate off Fly River as a base. We will J!y up into the mountainous districts and exchange samples of sugar cane for a few beads, trinkets, cloth, and such things.”.