The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-09-07

from their hold on the ground and dra;
the tree to the burning piles. Nov
one mainland railroad company is viii
ing and glad to spend many hundred
of thousands a year to get that which
formerly was burned up as trash an,
did not even make good bonfire.
Next year, where now IS forest, fas
! dwindling before the force of steam
| directed by brainy men, at least fvt
/ hundred acres of cane will go in. BY
| that time some million ties viii have
passed between the big mill saws anc
many thousands of mainland dollar.
will have been distributed in wage,
and dividends in Hawaii
In the meanwhile the Mahogany
| Company is pushing on through the
| plantation lands for its own forest
property, the jungle hinterlands, that
lie in great stretch from the fringe
of Puma toward Kau, through a dis
trict unexplored, and of which there
is no data beyond the fact that it is
heavily wooded and that this wood is
valuable. In the Puma end are miles
of ohia, on the upper slopes of the
company's tract in Kau are the great
koa forests, the trees from which the
Hawaiian mahogany is sawn, ma
hogany unexcelled anywhere in the
world, and for which, SO soon as it can
be placed upon the market, the dealers
of the world are waiting.
AS rapidly as eighty men can slash
the right-Ofway, cut and fill for grade
and lay the iron, the little pioneer lum
bering railroad is being pushed ahead
through the ohia jungle, towards the
upper heights where the giant koa
have been maturing for a hundred
years. The mahogany people call that
section of their own lands which abnts
on the plantation limits, "the home
steads,' and this is a country where
the ohia grows big. They want to
reach this with their railroad as soon
as possible and there is active work
going on along the right-of-way. But
none of the incidentals are being over
looked, nor the at present main object
of the company, the Santa F'e tie con-
tract, being sighted. The railroad is
going in for business and business is
being made for it ahead of the adj
vance and all along the completed
line.
At intervals from the edge of the
ton are loading ihclines, sideways
formed of ohia logs on a slant on either
side the track up to the level of the
logging trucks, some five or six of
which at a time a little tea-kettle loco
motive can handle. To these loading
places the cables of the donkey-engines
snake the logs on endless cables, pile
them up until the loading hour ar
rives and then jerk them up The in
cline and onto the waiting cars. Else
where, at convenient places, the small
err limbs of the ohia and the stumps
are being sawn, split and stacked up
for frewood, for which Hilo supplies
4 ready and steady market, while along
the right-of- way and back to a dis
lance of two and three hundred feet |
are being got out and stacked squares
If smaller railroad ties for the lumber
.oad itself, for the other railroads |
lnder construction and repair on the |
sland and for possible shipment for |
extensions and repairs of the Oahu |
Railroad. These ties are axe-squared, |
Ind the way in which the japanese |
axes for the work are being secured is t
)ne of the little indications of the up
,o-date and resourceful ways in which |
he company is going about its bust
ness.
These ties are being hewn by Jap |
lnese and Koreans, and these conserva- |
i've axemen viii have nothing to do |
With haole AIDES. With them it must |
,e the axe of the japanese pattern
" nothing. Now, imported Japanese
cost in the Honolulu and Hilo
markets six to seven dollars apiece.
Sam Johnson, the outside superintend
mt, failed to see that much worth of |
metal and labor in the
article, and, as the company
las and will have use for many such,
lie picked out Japanese blacksmith
rom one of his gang, turned over a
corner of the company machine shop
20 him and set him to work expert
nenting on forging axes of the requi-
lite pattern. The first axe was a
.lumsy affair, but the temper was good
md the man was told to try again.
Now that man is kept busy hammering
nut Japanese axes and he is giving the
a good, acceptable article at
cost of one dollar an axe, at the
anne time making expert wages for
Limself.
All the sights of the ohia numbering
perations are interesting, none more
Q than the way the big logs are col
ected and loaded on the trucks. At
he loading place are two donkey-en-
ines, each mounted on a huge two
unner sled on which it pulls itself
bout from spot to spot, hauling in on
cable anchored to some extra solid
wing tree. One engine collects the
,gs, the other snatches them from the
objected tangle, slides them up the
,g runway and bangles them in the
ir over the trucks, on which hardy
nd isk-taking japanese place and
lie them. The collecting engine
andes cable which can be snubbed
round fallen stub nearly a quarter !
+ mile off through the underbrush,
auling and Juggling this in straight
ne to the loading place, up and down
ulches, over lava rock and past
jumps = Along the taut and hauling I
able are signal boys, who have a
-igwag code of their own and who {
irect by signal the men at the en- :
me Sometimes to keen in SIGHT of