The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-12-16
FROM
HAWAII ISLE
Jared Smith Sees
the Coffee
Lands.
WILL REPORT TO
WASHINGTON
Chief of Experiment Station Pays
His First Official Visit to
Island Farmers.

Jared C. Smith. chief of the Hawaii
an Agricultural Experimental Station,
returned Saturday on the Kinau after
a ten-days' tour of inspection on the
island of Hawaii.
The greater part of his time was
spent in Hilo and nearby territory, in
visiting the plantations. and he
was given a cordial reception by the
farmers in tina neighborhood.
Mr.. Smith was highly pleased with
the coffee plantations in Hamakua and
L~aupahoehoe. and viii no doubt make
a report favorable to that industry to
Washington on the next mail. The Wis
r. was made with special reference to
the coffee industry on Hawaii. Mr..
Smith acting on Geographic instruc-
lions from r. G. True, who is in charge
of all the Experiment Stations.
Mr.. Smith also spent some time with
the chicken ralsers and gave them
sound advice in order that they might
remedy the prevailing chicken pox.
Just prior to his return on the Kin
au, Mr.. Smith visited Puma plantation.
Speaking of this visit afterwards he
said:
Puma is the only real tropical region
1 nave seen in Hawaii. One cannot have
had a perfect view of a perfect field of
cane until he has seen Puma. There is
the great expanse of blooming cane,
decked here and there with groups of
tall c~ocoanut and ~breadfruit trees. 1t is
characteristic tropical vegetation. 1t is
exactly what we used to see in the pic
lures IL the old Biographies at school.
1t is what we now see in modern seen
tlfc works on plant geography.
1T struck me that q beneicelt HroVi-
dence has always had that place IN mind
as d sugar country. Manage Campbell
told me that it never rains in the day
time, but that rainfall comes in plenty.
in quiet showers at night. This is re-
markabIe and a feature of great value.
The daytime is the working period of
plants as well as of men, and beasts of
burden.
Plants do their eating all the day ,ong
and in the shadows of the nign- time
they digest their food and rest. The
plant differs from the animal only in
the number Of stomachs with which it
handles the food. Instead of one or two
or three. 1t has a million or so. Each in
dividual cell does its work on transform
ing the elements of the air and the earth
into various valuable compounds. The
process is simple and wonderful. A green
plant takes carbonic acid gas from the
air and pumps up hydrogen through its
roots from the water in the soil. These
elements are converted first into glucose,
then into sucrose, then into starch.
THE starch is stored up in the leaves
of the cane stalk as long as the sunshine
lasts. At sundown in Puma. the millions
of cane leaves are stored and packed fun
of starch. When the sun sinks the subtle
and delicate machinery of the cane stalk
begins its work of digestion. The starch
is transferred from the leaves to other
portions OF the cane stalk. 1t is convert
ed into sugar. some of which goes to
make new shoots. some to repair dam
ages and much of it is stored in the stalk
as a reserve food supply. Some of it
goes at once into the formation of new
leaves to make more starch to make more
sugar TO make more leaves to make more
starch.
The agency in all these operations Is
the living matter in the plant cells. 1t
IS the plant soul as HaeckeI, the Ger
man philosopher. would say. It is d.
rectly comparable to the living matter in
animals. and is the vital force in all life.
The reserve supply of sugar in the cane
stalk. which is the secret of nature upon
which the great sugar industry rests. has
plant. 1t is an economy OF nature. de.
signed for the propagation and perpetual
ton Of species"