The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-01-08

who are divided when meal time comes.
and some who are doing quite equal
work With others, are not good enough
10 nave even tea With the elite. The
jealousy this causes sometimes cannot
be believed, and one used to your plan
tattons finds it hard to believe in such
treatment, especially when work should
be the only guidance to fair treatment
in messes.
Tie house accommodation is in every
respect very inferior except for the
heads of a few places. Cottages cost
ing about $50 are considered good
enough for mill overseers and those in
office. The latter work in buildings
much superior to those they have TO
live, eat and sleep in The cottages
are simply weatherboard buildings of
pine or hardwood, of three or four
rooms, unlined for the promotion of
health. so that the rains of all seasons,
and the bitter winds of winter, can
get freely into even the bedroom.
vanized roof, but in very few. The bar
racks for the men are in some places
simply denominations.
Perhaps to enter into the ways of So
called cultivation here, little more
may not be tedious to your readers
Instead of, as with you, one laborer to
every one and half or two acres, one
boy Is supposed to be enough for ten
acres, with the help of an occasional
plowman; and cutting firewood is sup
posed to be included in that. Thus
for two or three months every year
large gangs of laborerS will be doing
nothing but cutting firewood for fur
naceS for crop.
The work done on cane fields by boys
is very SMALL and if your estates and
those in the West India Islands could
do as little and get as much from
no hox han a
cry against bounties.s nor any estates
abandoned. The planting is all done
with solid cane, as much of the tops
as can be left on are sent to mill for
crushing, and the sugar boilers bless
that way you may be sure Dr. Max
well condemns any but the tops, as
with you, as unfit for planting; but
here they have got into such a whole
sale way of doing things l fear his
words will have little no effect. The
only labor done properly is the steam
blowing, and that seems to be very
costly; for one months work the en-
gines required three months for repair
or lying idle. The principle of work
here-the men in charge too often be-
ing totally inexperienced mems do
little, expect much" The land Is
plowed and narrowed; then the boys
are put on with hoes; cane holes are
dug for the plants, which are simply
pieces of hard canes laid in bottom of
holes fiat along and then covered up.
The trash is always burnt off af-
ter each crop is cut--for fear of in
sects. The young cane then grows, and
in many instances goes on growing
without any wedding or moulding or
cleaning for months. A little searify-
ing may be done here and there, but
often plows are put on and a furrow
made between cane rows and all grass
covered up towards and on cane stools.
rvNI To- oil 1nl a
along cane stools. and this is called
"mulching." No clean banks or trash
banks as with you. All is middle
TO look at; here grass round cane roots;
there great hollowS in middle of banks,
and too often a hollow ridge in cane
rows made by the pillow throwing dirt
from the openings, and that is left,
when beautiful work could be done by
the boys being sent to break down
plowed land and clean cane roots,
moulding cane stools nicely. AS to
trashing. 1 wrote and explained before.
One "Damager" thought he knew it
all, and did it on one field, and did it
so properly that only few leaves were
left on top of the canes, six months
old canes they We're, l should think,
and he "bled" them as If they were to
be cut in two weeks, and when the
field, as a matter of course. turned out
bad. he said ''Trashipg was nonsense.
AS l told everyone, trashing, to be
done well in Queensland, must only De
done to clean young canes, taking or
only bottom trash and cleaning cane
roots. Twice Will do here, against the
eight or nine times with you, until
the cane natures and is near cutting,
then once making thrice in all. The
frost here requires the cane covered,
but the young cane must start clean, or
else it will not do we'll. A few are
starting to put manure by hand ana
r~f md har
covering up but to put to each stool
as it is done with you, Is too costly
for them, and too much labor for their
wholesale minds. L would not give
much for nine-tenths of Queensland
sugar estates twenty years hence II
they do not mend their methods
l will close my remarks with a few
words on the climate, etc. Our sum-
mer is your winter, and December IS
generally hot with thunder storms In
June and July we have sometimes two
or three nights frost, say to degrees
on grass. never more since I have been
here and after one of these touches
the cane fields look burnt up, every leaf
perfectly brown. Some planters say
they like a sharp touch of frost as II
stops the growth and allows the cane
to mature in full saccharinity. Others
want none of it, but at any rate, as
Dr. Maxwell says, no one should ever
plant cane out of the tropics, where
no frost comes, and so say 1. 1t nips
the young canes right OF, but they
seem to recover very soon, and so on
again all right; still it seriously han
dicaps old and young canes, and a
frostless' winter is the best. The eli
mate is said to have changed much in
the last twenty years, as many years
ago frost was unknown. Droughts and
floods you have read of as being per
mauent institutions with US, and need
not be entered on here.
The whole success of Queensland now
lies in irrigation and proper cultiva-
ton. What will be done regarding the