The record-union., 1896-02-27
HAWAII, THE PEARL OF THE
PACIFIC"
The Seventh Of a Series Of Letters by
John R. MuSiCk.
The Two Great Cofee-Growing Dis
tricts-How Coffee is
Grown.

grants Oh a CEdSS greatly QGStICO. many
of the sugar plantations are of no ad-
vantage to the country save for the
taxes they pay. One of the largest
sugar plantations in Hawaii is owned
by non-residents. The manager and
every white man on this plantation are
citizens of California, and every laborer
is a Chinese or japanese. The planta-
tion has its own store which all the en-
ployes patronize, so that. year by year,
every dollar of the products of this
plantation of 10000 acres is sent out of
the country to the United States, to
China, to Japan.
Sugar plantations it is claimed, must
be conducted by large corporations; no
small canes grower has ever been found
who could successfully conduct the
business. But with coffee it is different.
Coffee is the poor mans crop" From
five to ten acres may be cultivated by
one person, and a single crop has been
known to yield $500 PER acre.
Coffee lands would disgust even
Connecticut farmers. How it would be
possible to produce anything at all from
the stone and lava, would puzzle any
one fully conversant with the stony
lands of New England, and yet the best
coffee trees are found growing out of
this same rock and lava. A gentleman
who has been making some scientific
Investigations into coffee growing, says
that lava-covered soil is the very best
in which to plant coffee. This gentle
man has a coffee plantation Of forty
acres, with over 1000 trees to the acre.
and his trees yield two pounds to the
tree. The blight and the fungus. which
is the result of the blight, has injured
the trees to a considerable extent, and
al one time threatened the destruction
of the industry, but it was discovered
that by spraying young trees with resin
water and potash the blight could be
destroyed Then the ladybird was in
troduced, and has proven destructive
enemy to the blight.
There is great rivalry between the
Puma and Kama districts in coffee
growing. The latter is the older dis
trict, and claims to produce a superior
article and more to the acre. On the
other hand Puma coffee growers claim
q better soil than Kama, and the work,
so far as they have gone, is certainly
promising. Puma district is, to a great
extent, wild unexplored region on the
great island of Hawaii, and has bur
1900 inhabitants, most of whom are ma
tives living in their aboriginal style in
grass huts. The district is capable of
supporting in comfort and prosperity
100000 people, as it has been discov-
cred that in these islands one acre of
good land will support eight people.
The Puma district is about ten miles
wide and fifty long, so one can under
stand what an enormous population
Ill
most of Hawaii is very rocky and
sterile. The northern part is covered
with a dense lauhala forest, and is
very thinly inhabited.
This district is covered with ancient
lava flows. The only flow of recent
date is that of 1910, which flowed under
ground for many miles, and then burst
forth in the woods and went down to
the sea, Overwhelming a small village in
it's course. In the course of this flow
may be found lava vases and trees
made by the hot tide rushing like an av-
alanche down the mountain side, some
times to the hight of hundred feet,
where it cooled and hardened, and, after
the wood burned out in the center, it
left a lava tree.
There is something remarkable about
the fertility of Hawaiian soil. Lava
flows are soon covered with ferns which
are great fertilizers. Then follows
dense growth of forest vines and thick
cts forming an impenetrable jungle, so
that one is compelled to cut his way
through.
Deep unfathomable chasms and cav
erns are quite abundant in Puma. Some
Of these cayerns extend miles under
"a ound with many branches leading off
from the main entrance. 1t is not safe
to venture into a cave without a COM
petent guide.
Mr.. Wright Of the Wilder Steamship
Company has Incorporated a coffee
association with a paid-up capital of
$4,000 for the purpose of opening up the
coffee country IN Puma. The company
has purchased 500 acres of the best
coffee lands in Puma, to be divided into
ten-acre lots, and it is intended to in
duce industrious Americans of small
means to emigrate to the islands and
engage in coffee growing. 1t is pro-
posed to give them one plantation in
return for improving one for the com
pany. The company itself will have 100
acres in coffee, 30 in cocoa, 10 to 20 in
citron roots, and viii utilize the balance
of its 300 in fine apples and guavas for
jelly.
Kama, the rival Of Puma, is about as
barren and sterile a country as it has
ever been my lot to see. One travels
over miles and miles of blackened rocks
and lava flow, most of it in this portion
of the island being the rugged flow
called by the natives "aa.'' On the first
day we crossed the flow of 1881 This is
black, but after a travel of ten hours
the color changes. The flow is older
and trees are found growing on it. Oe-
casionally the dead branches of mon
ster ohia trees could be seen sticking
up from the lava which overwhelmed
st in past years, the top branches white
and glistening like the bones of a skel-
eton.
After we had passed the black lava
flow of 1887, which extends for about
ten miles beyond the Kahuka ranch.
the trees became more abundant and
soon we were in forests of ferns and
ohia trees. The road here is through
the lava, and straight as an air line
railroad. Where there are trees the
road is cut directly through them, and
fl there are no trees the road is equally
as discernible by the Ieveling down of
the lava, which is piled up in wall OH
either side.
For hours at a time we wended our
way up hill and down, the roadbed
often choked with great stones over
which the tired horses could hardly
step. Whenever there was a smooth
bit Of road, the guide uttered a shout
"Wic-lxe, wic-kel" and put the horses at
a gallop. This was only for a short
time, however, for there is not a strip