West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1896-02-27
HAWAII, THE PEARL OF
THE PACIFIC"
The Seventh or a Series OF Letters by
John X. Musick.
The Two Great ooisse Growing Districts
How Coffee Is Grown.
Copyright, 1885, by FusK s wAeSArls Cox
pASr, New York;

Special Contribution for TnE AEous.
Coffee is said to be the hope oil
the Hawaiian Islands, as it will
bring emigrants of a class greatly
desired. Many of the sugar plan.
tations are of no advantage to the
country save for the taxes they pay.
One of the largest sugar plantations
in Hawaii is owned by non resi-.
dents. The manager and every
white man on this plantation are
citizens OF California. and every
laborer is a Chinese or Japanese.
The plantation has its own store
which all the employees patronize,
so that, year by year, every dollar
of the products of this plantation
of twenty thousand acres is sent
out of the country to the United
States, to China and Japan.
Sugar plantations, it is claimed,
must be conducted by large cor
porations no small cane grower
has ever been found who could sue
cessfully conduct the business.
But with coffee it is different.
Coffee is the "poor mans crop. ="
From five to ten acres may be cul
tivated by one person, and a single
crop has been known to yield five
hundred dollars 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 anyone fully conversaut with
the stony lands of New England.
and yet the hest 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 gentleman has coffee plan
tatlon of forty acres. with over one
thousand trees to the acre. and his
trees yield two pounds to the tree.
The blight and the fungus, which
l
is the result of the blight, has in.
lured the trees to conadera BILE
extent, and at one time threatened
the destruction of the in dustry.
but it was discovered that by spray
ing the young trees with resin
water and potash, the blight could
be destroyed. Then the ladybird
was intoduced, and has proven a
destructive enemy to the blight.
There is great rivalry between
the Puma and Kama districts in
coffee growing. The latter is the
older district, aud claims to pro-
duce superior article and more to
the acre. On the other hand Puma
coffee growers claim a better soil
than Kama, and the work, so far as
they have gone, is certainly prom e
ising. Puma district, is to a great
extent, a wild unexpIored region on
the great island of Hawai-, aud has
but two thousand inhabitants, most
OF whom are natives living ia their
aboriginal style in grass huts. The
district is capable Of supporting i'm
comfort and prosperity one hundred
thousand people, as IL has been dis
covered 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 understand what an enor-
nous population il is capable Of
sustaining. Puma, like most OF
Hawaii is very rocky and sterile.
The northern part is covered with
a dense lahula forest, and is very
thinly inhabited.
This district is covered with
ancient lava flows. The only aow
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 bot tide rushing
/ like an avalanche down the noun.
tain side, and striking tree with
such force as to splash the molten
lava up one side. sometimes to tho
height Of one hundred feet, where
it cooled and hardened, and after
the wood burned out IN the center
it left a lava tree.
There Be- sonnet tfffssf eofs.s .sts..f.f 4.