The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-04-02

Coffee is said to be the hope
of the Hawaiian Islands, as it
will bring ernigrants of class
greatly desired. Many of the
sugar plantations are of no adj
vantage 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 Juan on this plantation
are citizens of California, and
every laborer is a Chinese or
Japanese. The plantation has
it's own store which all the en-
ployees 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, to
Japan.
Sugar plantations, it is
claimed, must be conducted by
large corporations; no small
cane-grower has ever been
found who could successfully
conduct the business. But
with coffeeitis different. Coffee
is the "poor mans crop" From
five to ten acres may be cult
waited by one person, and sim
gle 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
any one fully conversant with
the stony lands of New Eng
land, and yet the best coffee
trees are found growing out of
this same rock and lava. A
gentleman who has been max
ing some scientific investiga-
ton into coffee-growing, says
that lava-covered soil is the
very best in which to plant
coffe. This gentleman has a
coffee plantation of forty acres,
with over one thousand trees to
the acre, and his trees yield two
pounds to the tree. The blight,
and the fungua which is the
result of the blight, has injured
the trees to a considerable ex-
tent, and at 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
1adybird was introduced, 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, and claims to
produce a 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 promising. Puma
district is, to a great extent, a
wild unexplored region on the
great island of Hawaii, and has
but two thousand inhabitants,
most of whom are natives liv-
ing in their aboriginal style in
grass huts. The district is cap
able of supporting in comfort
and prosperity one hundred
thousand people, as it has been
discovered that in these Islands
one acre of good land will sup
port eight people. The Puma
district is about ten miles wide
and fifty long, so one can under
stand what an enormous popu-
lation it's capable of sustaining
Puma like most of Hawaii, is
very rocky and sterile. Ihe
northern part is covered with a
dense lauhala forest, and is
very thinly inhabited.
| The 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, over
whelming a small village in its
course. In the course of this
flow may be found lava vases
and trees made by the hot tide
rushing like an avalanche down
| the mountain side, and striking
| a tree with such force as to
splash the molten lava up one
| side, sometimes to the height
of a hundred feet, where il
cooled and hardened, and, after