Page 4 Advertisements Column 2

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 765, 30 December 1908, Page 4

The new direct service to Raratonga and Tahiti is to be initiated on Sunday next, when the Mana. pouri will leave on her first trip trom Wellington for the islands named. This (sayp to-day's Dominion) ■ should be very welcome news to the public here and in the south, as it means a regular and frequent supply Of island fruit on the one hand, and on the other an alternative mail ser- ' vice with America via Tahiti and ! Honolulu — a twenty or twenty-one days' service. The residents in the Cook Group are elated *t the pro- , spect of a direct connection with Wellington, as they are certain that it will mean the more rapid develop- J ment of the fruit trade than if they were always to depend on the Auckland route. The Collector of Customs at Raratonga (Mr Stevenson), who is sit present visiting Wellington on vacation, states that there is abundance of fruit in the islands, and yet the soil so far has only been scratched here and there. There is enough fruit-growing land at Raratonga to supply the whole of New Zealand and, perhaps, Australia, with fruit, but it had been no good growing over and above the quantity for which a mar kat offored. : : . . .•*• .;„.,. -■■-. .-. ■.- ■ -_■■.., ■ '■ ' ->■•■'* ■■-■'■