The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-10-04
rnr ace INDUSTRY.

white rice has dvindled n ~.
vanishing point ss = Hawaiian expofi
atapis Within few years past tbs
rice industry ~ The mainland has beer
advancing by leaps aud bednda. The
crop Reporter published by authority
~ the secretary ~ Agriculture. ~ ~
september issue states that . preilmi.
nary report ~ the chief Of the Bureau
Of statistics ~ the Department u ARri.
culture shows the total acreage 81 rice
ln the United states this season to be
about Cl3. 900 acres, distributed az fol-
lows North Carolina, i.sOo. South
Carolina. $1,000; Georgia, 5000. Bouisi-
ana $780, 100. and Texas 25i20o acres,
The rice acreage Of the country has in
creased Sc per cent within the last 1--WE
years and Is now four times as large as
il was fifteen years ago. In 1899 Louisi-
ana and Texas contained 1913 per cent
OF the total rice acreage of the coun-
try. Now these states contain e31 per
cent Of the greatly increased total.
Rice cultivation In the Gulf States Is
not the same kind OF an industry as
we see IN Hawaii. TO compare them
would be like comparing the operations
of the great wheat farms of the United
states with the growing industry
OF the time of Moses, who made IL n
misdemeanor to muzZle the OK that
threshed out the crop with his hoofs.
In Louisiana and Texas modern ma
chinery and methods are used In every
stage of the rice industry from the
preparing of the ground to the market
ing of the cleaned product. The ques-
ton has been raised as to whether or
not the available areas good for rice
growing are large enough and the lay
of the lands is suitable, in these islands,
to make practicable the cultivation on
a large scale with machinery and meth
DDS of irrigation such as are employed
on the vast marsh level of the Gulf
States. However that problem may be
determined, 1t is to be hoped that the
local industry will not utterly pass
away. The large domestic consumption
of rice, as the principal food Of thou
sands of plantation laborers, makes the
saving to the Territory from raising it's
own supply something worth an effort
to procure. Even with the ancient
system in vogue here, where the plan
tiers are Orientals, the absence of all
winter conditions and the I'M
equaled productiveness of the soil,
together with the transportation item,
ought to count for much in meeting
of mainland rice. AS was
shown in the September number of the
Forester and Agriculturist,
on the authority of the United States
Census, both the yield and the aver
age value an acre of rice in Hawaii
We're out of sight higher four years
ago, than they were in the Southern
States. The only cause that we have
heard stated for the depression in the
Hawaiian rice industry is a scarcity
Of labor. If there are no other causes,
then, under the Exclusion Act and so
ong as the Chinese planters are de-
pendent on, or look only to, their own
for labor in the rice fields,
he condition would seem to be ire
nediable. 1t would probably be idle,
Turing a strong sugar market, to pro-
pose the interposition of American en-
erprise and capital for creating a new
ice industry, supposing, what has been
shown to be questioned, that labor
saving devices could here be success
July applied