Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1907-07-23
kauai REGISTERS KICK
SAYS PRATl'S LOTS ARE
NOT LARGE ENOUGH
KICKED OVER THE DELAY-NOW
KICKS ON ACTION-WHAT
GARDEN ISLAND SAYS
ABOUT 1T.

No sooner does the settlement of
kauais Land troubles approach than
Kauai begins to hammer Land Com
missioner Pratt editorially. Hereto
fore the kick has been over the al
legged delay. The Garden Island says
"Mr Pratt, in his capacity of Land
Commissioner, paid Kauai visit last
week after having failed to do so, al
though he had announced monthly for
a year or more that he would person.
ally make himself acquainted with the
land and conditions that he has been
trying to handle at Kapaa.
He has now come to the conclusion
that everybody ought to be given
enough land so that the owner can earn
a good, comfortable living for himself
and family out of it, and forty acres
Is the size of patch that just fits this
requirement.
Probably Mr.. Pratt believes that
such is the case, but if he looked a
little into the matter he would prob
ably modify his opinion somewhat.
Mr.. Pratt pooh poohs the remark
that only ten to twelve acres of cane
can be harvested yearly from a 40
acre lot after house lot, truck garden,
pasture for animals and road is taken
off. There are a few men here in the
Territory, some fifty odd in all, who
are the heads of large sugar planta-
tons and have earned their right to
hold such positions by long expert
cnce and intelligent experiments in
cane culture and sugar manufacturing.
These men have found that with all
the appliances that are at the COM
mand of large corporations they can
only manage to proftably crop about
third of their field areas each year,
which experience applied to the
Kappa homesteaders would mean that
| they could harvest the cane on about
twelve acres year provided every
thing went smooth.
The Kappa lands have given an
average yield of three and three-quar-
ter tons of sugar to the acre during
| a period of ten years. The cost of
bringing the product from seed to
lshipable goods vary somewhat at the
different plantations, but it is safe to
say that small planter could never
hope to produce his sugar at the same
cost that corporations with an output
of thousands of tons succeed in doing.
Putting the average cost of his sugar
at $50, which is probably very low,
and the average net price at $50,
which is certainly high, it would leave
fim profit of $40 per ton of sugar
or $3.50 per acre, or $3.50 for his
, yearly crop. Out of this amount he
/ has to pay his taxes, his water rate,
| the upkeep and fences and a few other
OUTLAWS that do not go into the cost
of production. The balance may pos
sibly support family but not in
American style. Neither will it leave
cent over to be put aside for a rainy
day, as American farmers generally do
This calculation could have been
done by most of the boys who have
graduated from the Kappa school and
probably also by the help in the. land
office Mr.. Pratt should have asked
his clerks for some figures before he
acted in the matter of fixing the size
of the homesteads, then he would pos
siby have offered something that
would have helped him to carry out
the administrators policy ito man
the land" Under the contemplated
conditions it will be "to keep the
land "