Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1909-03-25


the laborers be made comfortable.
Scattered about the plantation, instead of
the unsightly camps of former days, are
neat comfortable cottages. Some of the
camps are little towns in themselves with
well kept streets running between the rows
of houses The laborers are taking pride In
making their little cottages pleasing to the
eye by planting trailing vines, bananas and
flowers i'm the yards, while the rooms are
kept neat and tidy.
How Waialua Started.
Some fifty-fve years ago Warren and Levi
Chamberlain planted the first cane on this
property, then came Robt. Halstead who con
trolled affairs for twenty years. Cane was
planted at this time on a small scale. only
on the lowlands in front of the managers
residence where an old mill stood the brick
smokestack of which is still in evidence.
The Waialua Agricultural Company organ
lied in October, 1898, by b. +. Dillingham; and
Castle & Cooke controls $4,000 acres. Vi
this large area 200 acres are now under
cane cultivation. while 10000 acres will grow
cane under irrigation and 5000 acres more
will produce without irrigation, making
total area of $4,000 acres suitable for cane
cultivation. The remaining amount Is forest
and pasture lands.
Waaua is 20 miles from Honolulu by
wagon road which passes through Wahia-
wa, and 90 miles by the railroad, which fol-
lows the sea beach most of the way to town.
The plantation lands extend along the sea
coast fifteen miles and about ten miles to-
wards the mountains.
In early days several varieties OF cane
were grown, all being supplanted by Lahaina
cane, which is still the principal variety I'M
der cultivation. Yellow Caledonia cane comes
second. The manager has under cultivation
more than one hundred varieties OF cane,
grown upon u small scale for experimental
purposes.
The plantation is well equipped with Ave
complete sets OF Fowlers steam plow tackle
A special pillow is also used which turns the
soil to depth OF thirty inches.
Like all Hawaiian soils the soil at Waialua
contains oxide OF iron. On one end OF the
plantation the soil is dark and heavy, while
a few miles away 1t is reddish, resembling
closely that at Oahu plantation, Waipahu.
The labor force Of the plantation Is made
up of 22OO men-a cosmopolitan crowd, as
are the laborers upon nearly all the planta'
lions. This number comprises both day and
cooperative laborers
About 25 per cent. of these work on cult.
From one-haif to one ton of standard mixed
fertilizers, varying OF course with the con
dition of the land, are applied per acre.
Five hundred and fifty cane cars, drawn
by five Baldwin locomotives, transport the
ripened cane to the mill over thirty miles OF
permanent and seven miles of portable rail
road trackage owned by the company. The
plantation railroad from the mill to Waimea
is nine miles long, the whole system being
a three-foot gauge, the same as the Oahu
Railway q Land Company's track, thus en-
abling the latter company's cars to unload
fertilizer and freight at different points upon
the plantation.
Latest Crop Returns.
The 1908 sugar output was 30,376 tons,
taken from 1890 acres. This shows that the
average yield per acre was GAS tons OF sugar.
Climatic and physical conditions at Waia'
lua have caused the irrigation proposition to
be of especial importance. The system now
in operation Is elaborate and expensive.
During the year 1908 the Wahiawa Dam
supplied the plantation with S,94S, 900
gallons of water.
Practically all of the 10000 acres now un
der cultivation are irrigated there being
but $50 acres of nonirrigated cane upon
the mauka lands where It is grown for ex-
perimental purposes. These experiments
have demonstrated that cane at Waialua
will grow on the upper lands as well as at
other nonirrigated plantations throughout
the group.
Rose Bamboo has given the greater satis'
faction on the upper lands II rattouns well
and thrives much better than Lahaina at an
altitude
Water for irrigation purposes is obtained