The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-07-23
Conclusion OF a Three-year Resident.
Believes Planters Must have Coolies.
White Men Can't Fill the BnI-Prices
Paid and Returns or Small Holders.

The following communication,
setting forth some phases of the
labor problem as presented to the
Central American coffee planters,
was recently received by the Com
missioner of Agriculture. The
writer has spent three years in the
coffee districts, and his conclusions
will be read with interest by many
of the pioneers of Hawaii:
Coffee throughout the Central Am
erican republics, with exception of
Honduras, Is raised and cultivated in
much the same manner, as the same
conditions exist in all of them regard
ing climate, altitude and the labor
problem, the various modus operandi
that go to make up the routine of a
coffee plantation, or "Finca," as they
are called. All plantations of any
value are situated at an altitude of
from 1900 to $500 feet above sea level,
experience having demonstrated that
good coffee cannot be raised either
above or below the above mentioned
attitudes, for under 800 feet the tree
has a tendency to run to bush and
little fruit, while above $500 feet it
grows stunted and does not bear well.
The best f'Fincas" are at an elevation
of about 1000 feet, and the trees will
average, after six years of age, about
81 pounds to the tree; while at the
15OO-foot levels the average is about
q pounds per tree. Magnificent coffee
is produced, when properly cultivated
and the coffee trees are properly |
shaded.
The mode of procedure for begin |
ner, who goes, say for instance, to |
Nicaragua to go into the coffee bust |
ness, is as follows: A guide is pro- |
cured and the coffee district visited to |
find suitable location. If public |
lands, q claim is made, stating how
many "mansanas' (about Ia acres); |
then a shallow ditch is dug all around |
your claim-this the law requires. |
The public surveyor is notified he |
draws four lines, and issues you a GER
tificate, which you file with the gov
ernor of your district. Then, in due |
course of time, the Government will |
issue you patent. Surveyors fees |
are 20 cents per mansana, registering |
$40, and the land costs from 80 cents !
to $3.50 per acre. Having filled all the |
requirements of the law, your trou-
bles as a coffee planter begin.
You commence active operations by
employing a native foreman at about
$40 month in silver. He will pro-
vide what help you will need and see
that you will start out right. The
first thing is to select shady place
for your nursery, clear 1T, fertilize it
well and sow your seed previously
say from $1,000 TO $4,000 trees for
starter. As soon as your nursery is
started you commence your planta-
ton by clearing up all the under
brush, clearing the ground clean and
leaving the best shade trees standing.
Where there are no trees, plaintains
must be set out. All this will take
you from a year TO eighteen months;
then the trees are set out six feet Cor
two yaras) square and well covered in
around the roots. Young trees must
be full year old before transplanting
and must be carefully tended for four
years thinning out the shade as they
grow up. AT the end of the fourth
year you will get a small crop of ber-
ries, and at the end of the fifth year,
or rather sixth year Of the tree, a full
crop can be picked. Picking is done
in three intervals, and has to be very
rapidly done. The berry as soon as
It comes to the proper color, must be
picked, or else the crop is lost 1t is
thus pulped, dried, clean ed and ship
ped. All this reads very easy and
looks like plain sailing, but in reality
for the white man raised in q civil
lied country, it consists OF many diff
cuIties, years of hard labor and prIva-
tions before he arrives at the dignity
Of rich coffee planter; his greatest
drawback being the labor question.
There is probably no field on the
western continent where the serious
ness OF the labor problem has pre-
sented itself so forcibly as in Central
America. When the coffee picking
season comes on and the berries ripen,
1t must be promptly picked or 60 to
waste; throughout that country hum
dreds of thousands of dollars go
to waste annually for want OF labor to
get the crop in. Three years residence
in the heart of the Central American
that the labor question has
never been rightly understood or
appreciated by those who would
invest their money in coffee in
the tropics, with result that many
have lost their little all in coffee ven
lures. Not that the plantation was
not success, but that when the crop
was ripe they could not get it gathered
Tor love or money. The labor was not
to be had, and years of toll and hard
ship went to paught, the first crop
that ripened being lost. Large planters
in Nicaragua overcome this difficulty
Oy means of law of the country called
" Naturalization law" which ope-
rates as follows: A person, say a
abOreT, borrOws $50 from planter
and matriculates or binds himself be-
ore any Justice of the Peace to work
5his sum out at a fixed sum-generally |
20 cents day This amount must be
paid in wOrk-a money tender Is not
3 matriculated man or
N a vi sIa XVhn agree /