The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-10-01
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER /.

Ii there is any one thing more than another
needed to insure the rapid development of our
national resources, it is the aid of practical agri-
culturists throughout the group, or rather the
knowledge which such agriculturists might bring
with them. These islands cannot be said to
have any well-defned agriculture, and but
few thorough bred agriculturists. In most
cases those who have arrived and settled down
her are not thorough bred farmers, but ad-
venturers, who, from circumstances, have been
forced to take up such pursuit as opened before
them, with but limited means, and in too many
instances without any available capital.
In no branch of business, whether seafaring,
mercantile, mechanic or agricultural, is there
any exception to the rule that the man who has
passed through a thorough course of training is
better fitted for his business than he who under
takes the same business from force of circum-
stances. 1t is true thatthe latter, in exceptional
cases, by the application of u%ntiring zeal and en-
ergy, may acquire a greater knowledge of his
business in one year than he who has spent seven
years in it. OF this we have some examples in
our planters, whose labors have been most sue
~eessful. But still, the practical, thorough bred
farmer is better fitted to cope with the many add
WHISTLES llCu luSepdTdDlc ITOu AGRICULTURAL
pursuits, and in most cases is less liable to fail
ure.
Perhaps here is the reason why almost every
attempt to establish a productive enterprise has
proved unsuccessful in the hands of those who
commenced it. Scarcely an exception can be
named. Those who have watched the early his
tory of our sugar and other plantations, will find
this strikingly true. The attempt to establish a
grist mill, which enterprise alone is adding hum
dreds of thousands of dollars to the productive
capital of the kingdom, forms no exception, and
those through whose energy the enterprise was
commenced, are left to transfer their experience
to che benefit of their SUCCESSORS.
Here, as it is in every new country, expert
nients must be tried, the proper seasons must be
observed, the value of irrigation tested and RENE
dies against local blights or insects discovered.
But in all these the practical agriculturist has
the advantage over the novice, though even has
knowledge may prove insufficient to discover a
remedy for every new obstacle. In the locality
adapted for each branch of farming, such as the
selection of a spot for a grain farm, or a dairy, a
coffee or a sugar plantation, the practical agri-
culturist, with his thorough knowledge aud OBJ
s~ervation would, in nine cases out of ten, make
the more advantageous selection, and in making
such selection see at a glance what would be
needed to ensure success.
The Lihue sugar plantation, for instance, was
located on a spot where, had the place been as
well known before its selection as it is now (and
it may have been known to some then), it would
have been evident that irrigation must be resorted
to to insure success in carrying it on. Had
this been done in the first instance, and before an
acre of cane was planted, the success of the PLAN
tation would have commenced with the firstyear's
rations, instead of the seventh. AS it Is. the
knowledge of what wasneceesary for success has
cost the company a large sum of money, years Of
perseverance,, and nearly all its stock Of patience. !