Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1904-10-07

er purposes In operating the plantation
mill and railway. Makaweli plantation
has now the best gravity supply on the
islands. with a daily minimum from
! its two sources of 90 million gallons.
II IL proposed later on to store the
ireshct waters in reservoirs and use
them as balancing mediums to restore
the supply when the streams run low,
Owing to the steep land slopes. & to 10
degrees, II is very difficult to select fay-
orablc reservoir sites, except In the cen.
ter or back of old volcanic cones.
Many streams have been diverted
and many bitches made during the last
5 years on Wailuku and Pioneer plan.
tations on Maui. the Oahu and Waialua
Makcc and McBryde plantations on
Kauai but for the reasons before stat
cd practically no stream diversion for
irrigations has been made on the larg
est island, Hawaii, except the develop
ment OF water for cane fuming pur.
poses ut Olaa. Pahala and Hutchinson.
Ground Water.
The most novel development In wat
,er supply has been the discovery of
water by driving tunnels into the lava
formation at high attitudes ut encour-
aging localities. 1t Is very difficult to
predict what success Will reward any
outlay In this field, rs the results are
all prOblematic. a . million gallon
flow has been developed at an altitude
OF 400 feet at Waianae ON Oahu island
Ly Ave hundred foot tunnel; while at
Iahaina, on Maui, at an altitude of
$500 feet million gallon daily flow
has been developed by 2G0O feet of tun.
mel In formation whose exterior sur.
face showed no signs Of water such as
springs, ETC., and this volume has kept
practically constant for two years, fuc.
tuatlng slightly with the rainfall on
west Maui mountain In its immediate
vicinity, 1900 feet higher. On the
other hand In the fifteen miles OF aque.
duet tunnels cut under my supervision
In the past two years no ground water
In any quantity has been intercepted
except an occasional drip from tunnel
roofs through porous stone.
Duty Of Water.
One million gallons of water per day
Is the quantity found necessary to irri.
gate each hundred acres. Sugar cane
is grown In burrows about five feet
apart, into which the water Is turned
from the field bitches. When the seed
Is newly planted the water Is turned
on every three or four days, but after
that an application OF once each ten
days Is considered sufficient. The above
quantity II applied uniformly to the
whole surface would make a depth of
1874 inches in one year excluding rain
fall, and evaporation. which Is y pos
sibly fifty inches years In most of the
irrigated properties. Ii means the ap.
plication. for crop period OF one year
and half of 22,S00 tons of water per
acre TO produce 80 to so tons of cane,
which would appear to be excessive.
II Is safe TO presume that leaky res. |
ervoirs, bitches and unequal and waste.
full distribution prevent the applica. |
ton OF not more than one.third of the |
above quantity of water to the roots
OF the cane where its value would be
Economies of various kinds In the
application of water are now being
gradually introduced which will en-.
able the best results to be obtained.
Nearly all the water so far developed
las been used by the owners on their
own property. Lately surplus have
been disposed Of to adjacent owners at
HAT rate Of from IS to $40 per mil.
ion gallons. Great credit must be
gwen the American pioneers who have
developed such splendid supplies unde,
70 many adverse conditions in the past
wenty years in those remote islands
II the Pacific. BY no other people ex
'ept perhaps the Mormon settlers of
Utah has so much enterprise been dis
'iayed and SO many sacrifices been