The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-02-13
s,yccEssFuL SMALL FARAERs.

l.
There is a small block of ground OF
Reretania avenue, between MaKlhi am
Raeauuoku streets, which, for many
,,aa-s mast has been leased to Chines'
truck gardeners. 1t IS now co'eieo
with vegetables, growing well ana II
great variety. Some score OF wen 10 ~
cables are supplied daily from the PROD
nets of this little plot, as they nave Deeli
for a long time past. Apparently lhe
so,,rcee If the tract are inexhaustible.
All the staple growths of the Long IS
land truck farm, with the exception OF
edibles. such as celery, which require
frost to perfect them, mature month DS
month and year by year and sell at
good price Yet table vegetables are
What attract the greater number and
varietv of the agricultural pests of
which the pessimists complain.
On this little tract, one of many in
and about Honolulu, ten Chinese lessees
have made enough money in twenty
years to retire upon and go home to the
Orient. Every two years lessees or sub
cessors. The owner of the block, well
known citizen. has always had a fair
rental and has watched with keen and
intelligent interest the work that has
gone on and the money made by ii. He |
has proved to his own satisfaction that |
the Chinese did not get out because the
business was Improbable but because
Irod a
competency, according to Oriental I
standards, every twenty-four months.
The lessees and sub-lessees seemed to
belong to some tong or hui, so that
when two workers had made enough,
they willingly let their friends in. Each
lessee retired, when his turn came, in
a state of obvious prosperity.
1t has always seemed odd to the Ad-
yertiser that complaints about agricul-
tural failure from pests should come
exclusively from white men and that
the plea against small farming should ;
Asiatics. Every argument against the
small farm based on soil, climate, and
the presence of destructive insects and
parasites, is controverted every day in
the year under the very eyes of the
doubters. The trouble that exists can ;
must reside in the Individual; and it
will be long time before the Adver- d
tiser will accept the theory that the
per Sc, is a better farmer i
than the American.
But we advocate no competition with
the Chinese as a business. The special
point this paper makes is that a white
man of industry and skill can raise
staple products in Hawaii to
give himself and his family good liv
Ing while he is cultivating special trop
ical products for export. lie can easily
keep himself supplied with vegetables,
milk, honey. poultry, eggs, butter, fruit,
ETC., and have some left over for sale;
and in the meantime be growing pine
apples. sisal, bananas, vanilla, tobacco,
castor beans, ct cetera, for his profits.
The Chinese get along without the help
Of special products; or, if they go in
FOR them, as for bananas and pine L
apples, do not bother much with other
things. They do not fall in with the
general farming idea which combines
garden truck with export crops; and
here is where the expert white farmer
would improve upon their methods.
There are instances in point where he
s doing so, as may be seen from spe-
,ial report made and published a year :
IT two ago by Franz Buchholtz. Given
/ large population of white farmers, y
md the profits of special farming on
| varied scale would need no argument :
rom the press; it would as surely at :,
est itself here as it does in other Amer
can territories.