The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-01-28
GROWING
GOLDEN
APPLES
Pines That Ripen
on the High
Plains.
Very Rich Fruit for
the Worlds
Market.
One of the Things That Is to
Build Up Greater
Hawaii.

They are raising pineapples on the
breezy uplands that lie between Pearl
City and the mountains,-thousands and
thousands of pineapples. And that fact
covers the beginning of another indus
try that is to so to the building of
the Greater Hawaii.
! Out from under the palms and the
algarobas that cover all the low lying
lands about the head of Pearl Harbor,
out through the seas of waving cane
! that cover all the land as real green
ward always through rich pasture
lands until the blue range of Kalihi.
handicapped and rainbow tinted, seems
! to come down close to the valley, whose
| ending might be the ending of the
earth for all that can be seen beyond
it save where black cloud masses lower
over far away Kauai, the pineapple
plantation of the Pearl City Fruit Com
pany lies just where the warm sun may
ripen the luscious fruit and the cool
trade winds give it that kiss of the sea
which may be the one touch that makes
the Hawaiian pineapple the finest that
grows in the world.
1t is now four years since the pine
apple plantation was removed to it's
present site from the Pearl City low
lands, and since the cannery that is so
important a part of the industry was
established right on the land. 1t is this
cannery on the land that gives the Ha-
waiian product one tremendous advan-
tage in the markets of the world, for
the pines are taken from the fields to
the factory door and put into market
able packages with all their richness
and flavor unimpaired by long ship
ment and miscellaneous handling. They
are canned dead ripe. Nowhere else
can that be done to such advantage.
And the sugar is the sugar that grows
alongside the pines--only a dividing
fence between and sometimes not that
and that is another advantage. j.
The pineapple industry on the island
of Oahu is a new thing. comparatively,
said superintendent w. R. Waters, who
is in charge of the plantation, yester-
day. 1--WE had to learn it from the be-
ginning. We got our first plants from
Australia, but they have produced a
better fruit here. Why is that? 1t is
the climate, and the soil, and study
If conditions, 1 suppose They do bet
er on the red uplands Our elevation
5 $50 feet and up. AT all events, it has
been hard work. But the result is be-
ginning to be achieved. We began with
| very small plant, down at Pearl City. /
The factory now has a capacity of 15,-
100 cans a day and in the busy season,
rom June to December. it is working
uil time, 1 can tell you. We have 100
cres, in all, in pines now. There are
900 acres in the plantation, however.
nd we are putting in all the plants we
an get as fast as we raise them. Oh, s
es; we raise all our own plants. That
las been one of our difficulties. We
ould not get enough plants. Now. as 8
ur stock increases, we are producing
1ore and more and the whole planta-
ion becomes a sort of nursery of young
ineapples. The pine reproduces itself
I a way. perhaps, that many people
o not understand. The plant. from
s setting-out time, is usually eighteen Z
lonths in coming to fruition. although b
OCCASIONALLY one will go over the first II
caring period. When it does that, we 81
ct ten-pound pine from it. But, or
inarily, the plant fruits at eighteen
1onths. The fruit is gathered. and
fter cutting, in the second year, two
lants spring from the stock of the old
ne and we get a double yield from it.
his rattoOn process can only be gone
trough with once. But the plant,
hough it then dies, lives again. The
rown of it has put out a plant which
lakes the choicest fruit. although these
lants are somewhat delicate. The
liant is constantly putting forth suck n
rs. which are the ordinary plants sold q
4 nurseries for stock. Lastly, after the q
for baa whole b