The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-01-25
SISAL ONE OF COMING ISLAND INDUSTRIES
The Work of Building
Up the New
Idea.

bermuda sisal" they call it, although
tba hest authorities assert that it is
native TO the Everglades of Florida, and
Il contains within its sword-shaped
-. 1o-,,a+hine of the future of Great
er Hawaii.
ri,Iingham. president of the Oahul
,,o,,,.av took a party in his special car
down over the road yesterday TO Slsal
STATION. lust on the far side of the Eva
n1an+ation. TO see the beginning of theI
eisaI industry in the Islands. 1t is but
q beginning, although a most promising
one The special, leaving the city sta
4io, at half past one in the afternoon,
~on down fast through a rarely beau
+ifu1 country all the country here
abouts is beautiful-until the station for
oahu sugar plantation was reached, the
station under the picturesque cocoanut
trees that has been made famous be-
cause no amateur with kodak has ever
been known to pass it by without
shot.
The party was shown over the oahu
sugar mill first, and, although most OF
them were old residents of the Islands,
some were there who had never seen
the golden wealth of the land turned
out as it is turned out there. Then
busy little plantation locomotive came
along. putting, and took the special car
out over the plantation roads to one of
the big pumping plants. where from
IL. OO0. 600 to $4,000, 900 gallons of water
n. ION ~
over 400 feet high, and to another sta
ton where the big steam pump has been
sunk into the earth to meet the rising
artesian water-and that was a thing
many of the party had not seen before.
The plantation locomotive went OFF
about it's regular business after thal'
and the special went whirling across
the level land skirting Pearl Harpor'
past the little Chinese rice fields and the
great broad fields of waving cane, like
oceans rustling with life, to SlSal.
Presently the road led into region or
what seemed to be century plants, thou-
sands and thousands of them standing
stark upright in their thorny dgnlty'
set out in straight rows and topping the
weeds that they seemed to set them
selves above as something exclusive ana
apart in the line of vegetation. Ana
that was the sisal. Those spiny leaves,
crushed for the fiber in them and dried
are worth just S% cents pound IN the
market of San Francisco, and there Is
demand for all that can be produced.
THAT is why the sisal holds in its heart
q part of the future of Greater HAWAII
and probably a large part.
The sisal plantation and the srnaIl
mill upon it are in charge of Super1n-
tendent A. B. Turner, and he is a man
who knows his business and talks intel
ligently upon it. The little mill, the
first of many large ones of the future,
perhaps was crushing the cut leaves OF
the plant which were delivered at the
the door in carefully tied bundles OF
fifty by Japanese laborers. Each lear
went into the Jaws of the crusher just
as it came from the field. 1t came out
in the form of bundles of glossy green
ish fiber which went out TO hang on
lines with thousands of its fellows, untll
the sun had bleached 1T white, when 1t
would be spread on the ground for fur
Their bleaching, to be finally gathered
and baled. as hay is. baled, in which
form it will go to the ends of the earth
TO he made into ropes and cordage and
binding Irvine and all the things Tor
which tough fiber is used in the hurry
of modern life. For the sisal hoer Is
one of the toughest that is known, anu
ropes made from it might well be used
to hold a weight for a mans life
1.-THE sisal natures to the cutting
stage in from three and a half TO tour
years" said superintendent Turner eX-
planning the plant and the process 10
Afr Dillinghams guests yesterday
'"The plant grows for from SIX TO M
wears before it flowers, as the century
nlant does. 1t is one of the aloes. After
il flowers it dies, but it gives birth 70