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of islands he found sprinkled across the Pacific
and Indian Oceans.
No place in the world where the
grass is as green . . .
A favorite spot in a world of fabulous places
may be hard to find, but Dr. Esch found it when
he “entered” springtime in New Zealand. Ex-
plaining the earth’s seasonal patterns, he said,
“Everything is reversed down there. This was
October-November, and, of course, it was just six
months opposite, because New Zealand’s on the
other side of the equator. The moon crescent is
reversed, and there is no North Star on that side
of the earth’. When you turn on the faucet, water
swirls down the drain in reverse!
“New Zealand is a beautiful place. There
is no place in the world where the green is as
green as it is there in the spring. I used to think
Wisconsin and Minnesota had the greenest
springs, but they can’t compare with New Zea-
land’s. The soil is a black volcanic ash type of
soil, and it is very fertile. Things grow so pro-
lifically, unless you get up in the mountains.
And when you’re up there, of course, you have
snow all year around. But on the other levels
it’s semi-tropical and the same kind of things
bloom as in our South and Southwest, only they
grow so much faster. I saw rhododendron, for
instance, fifteen feet tall. All the trees and shrubs
are imported-no native trees of any kind. New
Zealanders have built a tremendous forestry busi-
ness in their mountains with American pine,
which grows about twice as fast as it does here.
I saw a California redwood tree that was twenty-
five years old and already was 125 feet tall.
“It has been said that there are two cities
in the world that are more British than London ;
one is Wellington, New Zealand, and the other is
Melbourne, Australia. The people are British1 only
in their accents, though. New Zealand is in many
ways American with a British accent. Australia
is, too, for that matter. You could pick New
Zealanders up and place them in rural America,
and you couldn’t tell the difference. There is much
more of a ‘free spirit’ in New Zealand and Aus-
tralia than in Britain itself.
“New Zealanders want people to immigrate
there, and there are very interesting immigra-
tion laws. The restrictions are on skills. In other
words, if you want to immigrate to New Zealand,
you must have a skill or profession that is needed.
-4-
Stone relics of ancient Batic tribe in a Batic village of
Sumatra
Consequently, thjere is no unemployment. The
population is a little over three million. The big-
gest city is Auckland on the North Island with
about half a million people.
“The main industries are agriculture and
sheep raising. The rainfall is high and the pasture
is prolific. Sheep raisers will graze 31/2 sheep
an acre, and cattle are grazed with them. The old
American cattleman would turn over in hlis grave
if he saw this, but actually it works out very nicely
because the animals eat differently. The cattle
come along and eat, and the sheep eat what the
cattle leave. The sheep, you see, eat right down
to within an inch of the ground, and the cattle
won’t eat that far.
“There are a lot of natural phenomena in New
Zealand. For instance, there is no other place
in the world like the Glowworm Grotto near Hamil-
ton. It’s a limestone cave, small by our standards
and one you wouldn’t go very far to see. The cave
has a river running through it about forty feet
below the regular level of the cave. Steps lead
down to this river, which, almost stagnant, moves
very, very slowly. The ceiling above the river may
be fifty or sixty feet long. You’re put in a flat
boat on boards, and you don’t dare make any noise.
Cables are strung, and a fellow stands at the front