The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1877-02-10

WASTE is always reprehensible, but deserves to
be classed as criminal when the substance wasted
is a necessity of human life, welfare or pros
perity. Any one who should have wasted a
thousand sacks of -four at Paris in the beleagured
days of that city, would have met with q short
shrift from the suffering inhabitants. There are
two ways of committing waste one when valua-
BILE necessaries are w~illfully destroyed, and the
other when we alphabetically look on and see them
thrown away OF the latter, we have examples
at hand, which We wish to point out, in the
waste Of WATER. AS we observed last week
g without wood and water a country becomes q
Sahara"
Il Within a few miles of the Government House,
in the middle of at least O. hundred thousand
acres of arabic land, there are daily running to
waste say 5000 to 10000 barrels of mountain
water-with the exception of a small quantity
that goes to irrigate a few acres of rice land
while the thousands Of acres that might be made
to add q million dollars TO the exports of the
country, produce annually only a few hides. AT
Waimanu a stream of water pours under the
public road into a gulch, in a body and with
force enough to drive q cotton mill orSto irrigate
thousands of acres, while four other streams Of
nearly equal size gush from the face of the adj
joining cliff. And all this water-this life and
soul of agriculture in Hawaii nei-has been from
time immemorial rushing forth from its cavern
ous sources to mingle uselessly and unappropria-
ted with the salt waves of the oceans waste of
millions. The force with which the water issues
forth attests the fact of q considerable fail the
quantity of the ever swift current indicates that
the reservoir from which it comes is a large one
and the equal force with which all these fine
streams issue from the hillside goes to show that
at some place, and not very far inland, they are
united in one magnificent subterranean river.
As it is the water runs to waste because the
streams issue below the level of the adjoining
plains, and therefore cannot be used for irriga-
ton. The sources of these streams are indeed
higher than the lands that might be benefited,
but unhappily nature has not in this instance
provided an open reservoir for man to tap and
so-the water goes to waste.
While our newly appointed Commissioners are
about to depart for Hawaii to search for Ways
and means for the development of the resources
of that island, we beg to suggest that before they
sail a few hours some day might be pro6tably
devoted to an examination of tbs locality herein
mentlODeU, u III CAN bhob ROSo1OAy 5Sho Hihd
might be devised whereby this abundance of
water running to waste 50 near home may be
ntiIiged in the development of the resources of
this island. Undoubtedly Honolulu can produce
men of engineering skill to whom it would not
be an insurmountable problem either to raise the
streams to the needed level or, what would be
better still, to find and tap the main stream and
to divert its course on to the now unproductive
plains of Eva.
To all who have eyes to see, it is obvious
enough that these islands are retrograding fast
from their former condition of l~uxurians vegeta-
ton, SO that We arg reduced to that last resource
of the agriculturalist-to seek for water for
Should an effort be made to u~tilise
the above mentioned streams, and SHOULD other
water courses be made use of for irrigation, we
trust that government will take prompt
to make it obligatory on those who use
the water to plant a certain number of forest
trees per snnum, and thus insure against the
becoming cut of in the future. In Ger