HOLIDAYS IN HAWAII 



Aiken over some new land he was getting ready for 

 pineapples. It had been densely covered with Ian- 

 tana scrub, and clearing it and grubbing it out had 

 been an heroic task. The lantana takes complete 

 possession of the soil, grows about four or five feet 

 high, and makes a network of roots in the soil that 

 defies anything but a steam plow. The soil is a red, 

 heavy clay, and it made the farmer in me sweat to 

 think of the expenditure of labor necessary to turn 

 a lantana bush into a pineapple field. The redness 

 of this volcanic soil is said to be owing to the fact 

 that the growth of vegetation brings the iron into 

 new combinations with organic acids. 



Later in the day we visited the large Baldwin 

 pineapple-canning plant, and were shown the 

 whole process of preparing and canning the fruit, 

 and all but surfeited with the most melting and de- 

 licious pineapples it was ever my good luck to taste. 

 The Hawaiian pineapple probably surpasses all 

 others in tenderness and lusciousness, and it loses 

 scarcely any of these qualities in the cans. Ripened 

 in the field, where it grew on the flanks of great 

 Haleakala, and eaten out of hand, it is a dream of 

 tropic lusciousness. The canning is done by an 

 elaborate system of machinery managed by Japan- 

 ese men and women, the naked hand never coming in 

 contact with the peeled fruit, but protected from it 

 by long, thin rubber gloves. There ought to be a 

 great future for this industry, when Eastern con- 



145 



