The Hawaiian gazette., 1912-10-04

.
icugth was amazed on b. tt,m m
| agitation Il was moral ,,rt imt
u would 90 10 knsu ar'c md m d..
( waimca. where vast ccnuty coul,
| lie opened for hnircs ads. l. vas a.
moral certainty that would be G..
tended TO kau from Puma to Hutchiu
son plantation On two occasions the
/ liute hinson people have asked The com.
rany 10 extend the line to their estate.
! There has not been enough freight OF
/ terings to make this possible at pres.
en-, hut with the building of the Kau
ditch, opening up new country. aud the
incidental development, this was a nos
silility M no distant date. In Olan
district there were 10000 acres of
government land that could yet be
homesteadcd. aud back of the Volcano
Rouse tn re- wns rich agricultural
country of 10000 acres partly owned
by the Bishop Estate, which might be
eventually developed into a home dis.
trict. What can be raised there is
still n problem, but by experiment and
investigation, something would eveutu-
ally be found, and the railroad would
be extended there.
Homesteads.
Mr.. Thurston was asked his opinion
as to homesteading He said he had
pronounced views on the subject and
had the honor in lSSS, as minister of
the interior, to open up the first home
stead tract in the Islands. IL was an
experiment and the homesteads were
eagerly taken IN. 1t was no use saying
homesteading had been as successful
as those who advocated it hoped for.
1t had been non successful for vari.
ETY. of reasons.
There were four principal reasons.
The first was lack of transportation;
second, lack of n market; third, gener
al lack of encouragement given by
many of the leading people in the coun-
try; fourth, that there are compare
lively few industries in the Islands
in which the small cultivator can en-
gage and produce something which can
be harvested and shipped ut leisure.
The local market is small and the mar
ket can easily be glutted with an eN
ira load of eabbages.
AS TO transportation Of marketable
products, and particularly of perishable
things to the mainland, the distance was
great, steamers were infrcquent, and
when products had to be shipped via
Honolulu, products from other Islands
suffered. Fruit and vegetables declined
to recognize steamer schedules and be.
came ripe between steamer departures
The United Fruit Company had been
sought by him to come to the Islands
and build up n trade in bananas and
other fruits, but declined. II had built
up an enormous trade out of the Azores
and Madeira and along the lower At.
lantic coast, and the president said that
the Hawaiian business was too small to
be worth their attention.
Mr.. ThurstOn said that the banana
shipper here was at the mercy of the
mddleman on the Coast and often re-
ceived his freight receipt marked with
red--a loss. If foreign steamers could
take perishabe products from here the
situation might be helped, owing to the
cost of shipment being less. However,
he did not advocate taking the coast
wise restrictions off of steamers for
freight carrying, although he did advo.
cate the suspension of the coastwise law
! for passenger traffic. Island shippers of
fresh fruits seldom got a square deal
on the Coast.
MIR. Thurston went into some of the
difficulties of small farming here, as
compared with the relatively small diff.
fculties encountered by homesteaders
on the mainland. On the mainland he
could put up shack, get horse and
wagon, SOW a crop of grain, and take
off his harvest in the fall and get cash
for his crops within few months after
taking over his homestead. In Hawaii
his crops did not come off for two and
three years. Tropical cultivation was
far different to that on the mainland.
The mainland homesteader had access
to railroads. The Hawaiian did not
have any such easy access. As to the
middleman who confronted the Hawa
ian grower, he said the shipper ought
to pray the good Lord to be delivered
from him.
Secretary Fisher said he did not come
across all the rosy features which Mr.
| Thulston had painted of the mainland
homestead. Sugar beets were not so
easy to grow as Mr. Thurston said
Mr.. Thurston stated that the Cali
| fornia labor commissioner reported that
the beet sugar crops we're raised prin-
cipally by japanese. Mr.. Fisher
thought he would find very large per
centage of Americans growing them in
the States further east. In Canada, Mr.
Thurston said that in June last he saw
soil being turned up for the first time
near the railroads and the land being
prepared for winter wheat for harvest.
ing next spring or summer. 1t appeared
to be very simple and Inexpensive
proposition to him, as compared with
the two and three years to mature a
crop and the high cost of clearing in
| Hawaii.
Mr.. Thurston spoke of the efforts
made at his initiative to form mar
keting association among the local pine
apple growers, to market fresh fruit on
the mainland. The difficulties seemed
insurmountable, even though they had
all the data of the California associa-
ftions at their command. Mr.. Thurston
had worked out a comprehensive plan,
! but it was still in his desk and had not
been adopted. He said it took about
twenty years for intelligent farmers in
California to get together on this propo-
sition. lie called attention to the diff.
ference in race of the farmers here and
tthe difficulties in getting down TO gen
eral system that would satisfy all. The
/ people here got along very well together