The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-09-26
TOO Mucn NEAT.

/ By the Advertiser coiniheitle'l a.
Gle of Sunday it will have been seen
: that the graziers are troubled about
IAN excessive production of meat, both
beef and mutton, in the Territory.
This will be the main topic of discus
, sion at the annual meeting Of the Ha-
waiian Stock Breeders Association 10
: be held on November II. In the third
judicial district, where large cattle
ranches exist, the cattlemen have won
their appeal against increased assess
ment per head of cattle. The tax APP
peal board gave summary decision
in their favor, on the grounds OF
falling off in the demand for beef with
a decrease in price. This, too, was in
the face of the Governments showing
that all of the cattle owners realized
large profits from their ranches" APP
peals of cattlemen on Oahu are pend
ing before the tax appeal board of this
island.
Waving. for the present. any dis
cussion of the meat supply from the
viewpoint of the consumers, there are
factors in the problem which do not
seem to contain justification of alarm
regarding an over production. In the
first place, the conditions Of heavy de-
mand shown before the third district
board to have passed away will pos
sibly, if not probably, be restored in
almost identical form within a year or
two. To replace the fresh meat trade
with the transports there looms up in
the prospect the supplying of the Army
Post for which a site closely overlook
ing Honolulu has already been pro-
cured. There is good reason for ex-
pecting, also, that something will be
doing in the establishment of the
Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, for
which the United States Government
now owns all the land required, before
, this Presidential year has gone far
past. This would mean the employ
ment of quite an army of citizen labor,
much of it skilled, which would have
to be fed and fed well. Once the Naval
Station was erected, its dockyards and
the ships coming and going would i'm
ply large population at Pearl Harbor
all the time to feed, without any more
than the ordinarily small percentage of
vegetarians found among the Amer
lean people.
Then, again, the departure of me-
chanies within the past two or three
years is liable to be made up for, one
way and another, in the near future.
The erection of Federal building in
Honolulu cannot be long delayed with
out injury to the interests of the Unit
ed States Government itself, leaving
out of account the question of what
effect the importantly of our people
may produce at Washington With the
improved condition of the sugar in
dustry not only will there be revival
of activity in our foundries, but all
kinds of business will be stimulated,
These things are bound to bring in
much skilled labor, and an increased
demand for houses will make the build
ing trades again active. All of this
means an increased demand for beef
and mutton.
There is still another element in the
situation, of which the cattlemen have
no need to be informed. The great ir-
rigation ditch projected on the island
of Hawaii will cause large tracts of
land to be converted from grazing to
sugar cane growing purposes. cit win
wipe out the cattle ranches" is the
emphatic manner in which a Kohala
planter lately foretold the effect of the
ditch in his district. Cane cultivation
has been successfully increasing it's
elevation for some years anyway,
taking land from live stock ranges
Almost all of the sugar plantations
started in these islands since 1898 have
been at the expense of cattle ranching
lands, Then the Government is COM
ing in at the top to take large segments
of the mountain slopes for forest re-
serves. It is evident that, from the
causes. mentioned, there will before
long be a further contraction in the
available grazing area of the. Territory
Intensive stock-farming has been
thought, by people who have foreseen
such a condition, the proper remedy
to adopt when the occasion arrived.
Coming back to the matter of pres
ent over-production of meat. there are
some facts going to show that the con-
dition is only temporary. The past
four years have been extraordinarily
rainy. producing fine feed conditions in
abnormal degree. For example on the
island of Maui the annual rainfall
during the four years 1904 has been