The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-11-06
THE EXPERIMENTAL STATION.

ample of what science can do. 1t is not
what science can do for the student
but what it can do for the planter.
Every step in the experiments made in
the growing of cane at the station are
made on the soil itself. and not in the
laboratory or on paper. Upon twenty
plats of land, twenty different methods
of cultivation have been tried, with an
accuracy which only the thoroughly
trained scientist, who has also studied
in the field can make. The report
should be carefully read not only by the
planters, but every one who holds any
sugar stocks. For there are in it, data
and suggestions which indicate clearly
what the history of Hawaiian cane Gull
tivation will be, and how the value of
sugar stock will decline unless the
teachings of science are carefully fol-
lowed. s
The report is 50 compact. filling
thirty pages of the Planters Monthly,
that an abstract of it's contents is inn
possible. Only a few items in it are
general reader. On these nineteen
pIats, situated near Punahou, the
amount of sugar raised when calculated
per acre, amounted on the average to
thirteen tons. All of the plats were
irrigated more or less. Nineteen were
fertiIiZed and one plat was not The
closest account was taken of the weight
OF the cane, and the sucrose in it.
Fertilizers were applied, in different
combinations, to each plat. The soil
was analysed in advance.
The analyses and calculations now
furnished develop interesting and
startling conclusions. The cane feeds
mainly on nitrogen, phosphoric acid
and potash. There are 6519 lbs of nit
rOgen in one acre of the soil, to a depth
of fifteen inches The first crop Of cane
on these plats took out 500 lbs. of this
nitrogen, showing that seventeen crops
would entirely exhaust the nitrogen in
it. The same proposition is generally
true of potash and phosphoric acid.
moved from the soil, per acre, 164 lbs.
OF phOsphorc acid, 1140 lbs. of potash,
and 412 lbs. of nitrogen. Unless these
fertilizers are restored to the soil the
crops must inevitably decrease. These
fertilizers are costly, but they cannot
be withheld if the yield of sugar is
maintained. The natural resources Of
the soil, under high cultivation, be-
come quickly exhausted and the yield
must fail, unless there is constant re-
stOratiOn of fertility.
If the money value of these ingre-
dients is taken. it will be seen that at
NO distant period the cost of fertilza-
ton will be very serious one on
many plantations. The value of sugar
stocks will not be taken from the lists
OF the stock exchange by the intelligent
investors, but from an inspection Of the
methods of cultivation of the land A
thief may steal the plantations money
or carry off some of it's cane, but a
robbery of the soil, the most valuable
OF the assets, may not be discovered
until it is too, late to recover the goods.
The analyses show that while the
mineral matter taken from an acre OF
soil amounts to 745 lbs. in the cane
itself, the amount of mineral matter
in the cane leaves is much greater
being 547S lbs. Wherever the leaves
are burnt UP at trash, just as much
valuable matter, containing nitrogen is
scattered to the Winds 1t is throwing
coin into the sea.
The practice on the plantations gen
orally is to use one hundred millions
of gallons of water per day, 10 irrigate
and care for one hundred acres of cane
land. The experiments at the station
shows that one. hundred millions gal
Ions per day should sufficiently irriga5e
four hundred acres. If this result is
verified by further experiments, il
shows that three-fourths of the water
now used is simply wasted or lost
The money value of this fact rises into
the millions and may. in time, recon
struct the irrigation processes.
The work of the experimental sta
ton is still in it's beginning. DR.. Max
we'll advances his conclusions cautious
ly and tentatively. Much remains &c
be done. Nature does not cast hel
valuable secrets into the streets to be
picked up by the idlers. Size yields
them only at the persistent demand o.
the thinker and investigator. The ex
detrimental stations of the Mainland
have done more for the advancement
OF agriculture in fifteen years than tn,
inexact, desultory and guessing worl
of the farmer, for century