The Hawaiian gazette., 1900-04-03
ABOUT SUGAR.
Report or Agent saylor to Washing
lonesome Interesting Facts.

c. F.. Saylor, the special agent of the
United States Department of Agricul'
ture, has sent in report to the Gov
eminent at Washington, of observa-
tions made by him on the sugar indus
try of Hawaii during his recent visit
in Honolulu. Mr.. Saylor says:
| In pursuance of my plan OF investi-
eating the agricultural resources OF
the Hawaiian Islands, recently made
trip there and you may be interested
in a short note touching some OF the
facts relative to the sugar industry.
was somewhat prevented from making
personal inspection of large num-
Der of the plantations themselves on
account of the prevalence Of the bu-
| bonic plague at Honolulu. This iso-
lated Honolulu from the rest Of the
islands by quarantine, so l was COM
PEELED to make most of my stay in Ho-
nolulu, this being the headquarters OF
everything that has anything to dc
with the Hawaiian Islands. OF course
it is the main field for gathering fig
ures and facts concerning sugar. All
| the plantations have headquarters
| here and all business in the islands is
| directed from here.
The plague itself is quite a factor
affecting the condition of the sugar in
dustry on account of the likelihood OF
plague breaking out any time on the
plantations among the Chinese or
Japs, which would prevent exporting
the sugar or the further probability of
ports of the United States quarantining
against the sugar from certain sections
of the islands, or in fact all sections,
if this trouble should keep up or
spread. There has been quite mate
| rial slump in prices OF sugar stock in
places where sugar must necessarily
sympathize with this panicky situation.
notice, however, that the latest news
says Honolulu has enjoyed period OF
ten days without any new cases, at the
same time 1t mentions the fact that 1t
has spread to another island, at which
place they have had six deaths.
The custom of rating the production
on the islands Is not based on amount
of cane produced to the acre, but on
the amount of sugar produced to the
acre. Some of these plantations can
give you some wonderful records in
this respect. / presume there is moth
ing like it in any other place in the
world. Take the large sugar planta-
ton near Honolulu, about 5000 acres.
This plantation produced an average
Of 10 lilo tons of sugar per acre last
year. They had smaller strips OF
ground that went as high as fourteen
IONS of sugar per acre, but the above
is the average. Quite number Of plan
tations or sugar plants do nearly as
well, but not all of the present acreage
on the island produce sugar as success
fully as that. IL seems to be the uni
versal opinion among those best post
ed that the islands will be able to pro-
duce, when all her resources have been
called into action, about 100000 tons
of sugar, but about half of this cannot
be produced any cheaper than that In
the United States on account of addi-
tional cost of pumping water for irriga-
ting lands on higher attitudes.
The islands have not worked up any
definite data as to the actual cost OF
pumping water for the various alti-
tudes, but was permitted to see some
figures along that line, which are be-
ing prepared for that very purpose, and
these point very strongly to the fact
that the ability of the island to pro-
duce sugar as cheaply as that now ex-
ported will be something below the
figure of 100000 tons. They produce
about three crops in four years. In
some instances they are able to pro-
duce one rattoon crop. while in others
the rule Is for a single crop. We are
not able to give just at this time the
relative proportion. The best authority
puts the crop proportion of sugar at
five tons per acre on an average sea-
son, taking the plantations as they run
throughout the islands. 1t costs about
$l4 per acre per season to fertilize an
acre of cane.