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As in every other industry the present position of agriculture 

 has been attained only by patient and continual effort, and each 

 success has been possible only by the accumulated experience of 

 the past. The success of agriculture today is, however, chiefly 

 due to the availability of only a part of the record for, as a gen- 

 era! rule, it has only been the result of successful experiment 

 which has been preserved. It is to be regretted that as extensive 

 and comprehnsive an account of past failures and only partial 

 successes of experimenters is not available. Were such knowl- 

 edge disseminated we should be in a position to weigh the possibil- 

 ities and probabilities of the success of new undertakings under 

 the enlightenment of the whole record and should not so 

 often see the same blunders perpetuated and the same impossi- 

 bilities attempted by each generation of agriculturists. We would 

 therefore urge the same patient observance and the same per- 

 severance to record cases of failure as has hitherto been given 

 to those of success. In examining the causes of failure and en- 

 deavoring to overcome them, the road to success may generally 

 be determined. It is, however, of the utmost importance that 

 the whole of the attendant circumstances of failure be critically 

 viewed, for, if this be not done with intelligence and exactness, 

 the bare record of a failure is calculated to have a far greater and 

 more harmful effect than if the result of the experiment had 

 been allowed to go unnoticed. Man is too prone to be influenced 

 by discouraging statements, and too often in the past the 

 sweeping announcement of the impossibility of attempting certain 

 lines of agriculture has been sufficient to deter their attempt for 

 manv decades. Very often such gratuitous dicta are founded 

 upon single experiments conducted by individuals unlearned in the 

 first essentials of agriculture and under such conditions that 

 signal failure was assured. The cultivation of many valuable 

 plants is today pronounced impossible in Hawaii, and many sucli 

 cases will occur to all our readers. For our own part we believe 

 emphatically that there are very few fruit or flower producing 

 plants of economic importance which cannot be grown as success- 

 fully in Haw^aii as elsewhere. In every attempt at growing a 

 plant exotic to these islands the first essential is the selection of a 

 suitable habitat with regard to such provision as altitude, rain- 

 fall, atmospheric humiidity, and soil constituents, and in none of 

 the hitherto recorded failures, which has been brought to our 

 notice, has due respect been paid to all of these. The plants, 



