12 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



Compiled bv Jared G. Smith, Director, Hawaii Experiment 



Station. 



The consumption of cocoa and chocolate in the United States 

 amounted to 397,066 tons in 1904: that of Germany, France, 

 Holland and Great Britain, to 101,031 tons. Imports into the 

 United States have doubled since 1898. 



The cotton States of the South pay $100,000,000 annually as 

 wages to cotton pickers. One laborer can pick about 100 pounds 

 of cotton per day. A new mechanical cotton-picker, which is 

 being operated extensively in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and 

 Mississippi picks cotton at the rate of 200 pounds per hour. It 

 is estimated that the general employment of this type of machin- 

 ery will save $75,000,000 per annum to the growers of the South. 

 The machine in operation requires a mule team or gasoline motor, 

 driver and four operators. The latter are seated on the machine, 

 and each works two mechanical, aluminum arms four feet long, 

 moving in a universal joint. Along each arm moves an endless 

 belt of cloth and rubber at the rate of 360 feet per minute. The 

 belt is studded with hooks, the slightest contact with which is 

 sufficient to remove all the fibre from the boll. The cotton passes 

 rapidly along the belt until it reaches a brush, which sweeps the 

 lint into a receptacle prepared for it. Using this machine five 

 laborers can pick from 2,000 to 2,400 pounds of cotton per day, 

 and it grades better than that picked by hand. 



Capt. Baker, the founder of the United Fruit Co., gives it as 

 his opinion that if some use can be found for the juices of the 

 banana plant it would pay to extract the fibre from banana stems. 

 The fibre averages 1.8% of the w^eight of the plant. Banana 

 fibre would have to compete with wood-pulp for paper stock and 

 w^ould probably not sell for more than $50 to $100 per ton, the 

 latter price being obtainable only in years wdien there is a shortage 

 of sisal and maniia hemp. It has been estimated that 20,000 

 acres of bananas would produce 9,000 tons of fibre per annum^ 

 worth fro]n $450,000 to $900,000, or $22.50 to $45 per acre. If 

 some use can be found for the acrid juice of the banana plant the 

 problem of profitable fibre extraction will undoubtedly be soon 

 solved. 



