The Hawaiian gazette., 1871-05-10
Letter Frosn Maui.
MAKAwAo, Maui, April l!

MAKAwAo, Maui, April 10, 1871.
Editor HaDaiian Gazette,
DEAR SR:-In my last communication gave
you the origin of the wheat growing enterprise in
Kuia, part of my present field of labor 1
showed also that from small beginnings the busi-
ness increased until some 10000 or 10000 bush
els were harvested in a single year. Ny hope
that the enterprise of wheat-raising and -four
making would prove decided success was then
very high. And yet admitted that the bus-
ness had proved failure, and the reasons pro-
posed to give you in another paper Before doing
so, however, let me speak OF the sale of lands at
Makawao to native Hawaiinns, making all who
chose to purchase, bona .tide land owners. In
| 1916 Kamehameha III made me his agent for
selling the district of BIakawao to his Hawaiian
subjects, allowing each man to take as many
acres as he could pay for within year, at one
dollar per acre. l thus sold the entire district
and obtained for each man deed 10 fee simple
1 confess to feeling Of intense qualification on
seeing the people of this district in possession of
small farms, which by cultivation would make
them comfortable homes / recommended the
cultivation of wheat corn, potatoes and garden
vegetables Of various kinds such as beans, squash
es, melons, cabbages, beets, onions, bananas, to-
matoes and other esculent plants which their
lands might produce. l suggested the duty Of
planting aud cultivating fruit trees, coffee, fig,
guava, orange, lime, peach pineapple and tama-
rnd. 1t seemed to me that my interest in the
people of this district as their teacher and pastor
of the church, made it suitable that should give
them advice on subjects pertaining to their tenn
poral prosperity; did SO, leaving it to their op-
ton to follow such advice or not. besourht
them to hold on to their lands, resisting every So
lictation to sell what their sovereign had kindly
allowed them to purchase as homesteads How
far my advice was needed shall show in the
sequel.
Q.) And in relation to the variety Of agrieui-
tural productions. One man only in Makawao
made an effort to secure any thing like q variety
of productions on his farm. All the rest went
into the wheatgrowing business and in a year
or two the entire district was plowed and sowed
with this single grain. AT the time Of purchas-
ing, there was large number Of the wiliwii tree,
the timber of which, for its buoyancy, used to be
made into outriggers for canoes, growing beauii-
fully thro' the districts Of Makawao and Kua
Some of .he little farms near my residence we're
so nearly enclosed by rows Of this tree, that
few poles laid from the crotch Of one to the
crotch of another, or from one limb TO the other,
made fence sufficiently strong to guard the lot
from the intrusion of cattle and horses. In my
opinion these trees we're Of great value for feuc-
ing purposes and being full Of sap, and having
but few leaves to cast a shade, grain and vegeta-
tables would grow beneath them almost as well
as at distance from them. Well, for the sake
of plowing their entire farm. nearly every will
will tree in these two districts were cut down
and most Of them left to decay in the ground.
AS the business Of manufacturing wheat into
-four at Honolulu created demand for this
grain, every one. SO to speak, sowed every nook
Of land they could command with wheat, to the
exclusion Of corn, beans, potatoes, and other
vegetables. Had wheat commanded fair price,
money would have been more plenty among the
people, but they would have had fewer comforts
than they might have had, had they varied their
productions. The destruction Of the wiliWili ]