The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-10-16
The Sugar Market

says: The Hawaiian papers bring to
US an account of the death of Alexander
Young, distinguished citizen of the
Hawaiian Territory, who became well
known in Louisiana among the sugar
planting fraternity some fifteen or
twenty years ago, when he visited us in
this State and gave US some data con-
corning the production of sugar in Ha-
wali that set everyone to thinking and
to wondering if it were possible to inn
prove our methods here as they seemed
to have done with such rare success in
Hawaii. When Mr.. Young was visiting
Us he was interested in the Waakea
plantation, and it was at that time that
he told us that he had got 2S9 pounds
of commercial sugar per ton of cane in
MS sugar factory, or about 141a per cent
yield the largest that we had ever
/ heard of up to that time. Even now,
with their best machinery, the Cubans
can generally only get u to IS per
cent.
Among the pallbearers we note the
name of our old friend, F. A. Mott
Smith, who was in New Orleans as one
of the Hawaiian commissioners at our
Cotton Centennial Exposition in 1885.
SUGAR BETS VS.. SUGAR CANE.
The Louisiana Planter notes the fact
that last year the American production
! of beet sugar was 100000 pounds,
as against 750.000,000 pounds of cane
sugar. and therefrom draws the infer
ence that Louisiana should seek to at
tract to its cane fields the same class
of thrifty small farmers and working
men which has made possible the rapid
development of the beet sugar industry
in the North and West.
In 1898 the production of beet sugar
, in the United States was but 100000
pounds, while that of cane was substan-
, tally what it is now. The cane sugar
output has been stationary, while that
of beet sugar has increased more than
tenfold
The Louisiana Planter saws that this
gain of the North and West is not due
to the superiority of the beet as a sugar
producing plant, for it declares that in
! that respect the advantage is with cane,
but to the superior enterprise and intel
, ligenee of the producers.
| Doubtless that is true, even though
the varieties of cane which can be pro-
duced in Louisiana are by no means
equal as sugar bearers to the tropical
varieties from which most of our cane
sugar is produced
But it doubtless is the fact that the
advantage in varieties which the tropics
possess is more than offset by the duty
on imported sugar, and that, apparently,
since suitable land is abundant, the
growth of the Louisiana cane sugar in
CHI hot
of the beet sugar production.
1t is doubtful whether Louisiana will
be able to attract small farmers to it's
cane fields. 1t is not certain that sugar
cane can be proftably produced by
small farming. 1t is not so produced
to any extent anywhere. 1t is a prod
net of large plantations, requiring large
capital and cheap labor.
The climate of the cane lands is not
bracing, to say the least, and possibly
only the black race can maintain its
health there. In the old days Of slavery
the sale of slave to the cane fields
was considered the most dreadful thing
which could happen to the Kentucky or
the Virginia born negro.
Nor is it probable that white labor
for the necessary cultivation could be
induced to 90 TO Louisiana and compete
with black labor.
That Louisiana has an abundance of
good land not properly cultivated is
true. but its best chance of Improvement
is to encourage thrift and enterprise
among the colored population which it
/ has inherited from the old DAYS. The
State could not make wiser invest
ment than the creation of a New Tus-
! kegee on the cane lands, under the di-
rection of another Booker Washington.