262 



NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. 



June 



"SecoJid. I found the crops of those killed in 

 the morning either entirely empty or but partial- 

 ly distended M'ith food torZZ ?rtace?'a^ecZ, while those 

 killed in the latter part of the day were as uni- 

 formly well filled with iood freshly taken. 



"Third. From the almost daily examination of 

 their crops, from the early part of March to the 

 present date, I have obtained and preserved in 

 alcohol, ten varieties of food, consisting of larva?, 

 coleopte.'-ous insects (beetles,) orthopterous, 

 (grassnoppers,) and araneidaus (spiders). But 

 nine-tenths of the aggregate mass of food thus 

 collected, consist of one kind of larvae, which be- 

 longs to the curculio family ; but, as yet, I am 

 unable to determine the species. I have frequent- 

 ly taken a hundred from a single crop, and, in 

 one instance, I found one hundred and sixty-two 

 all in a fresh, unmacerated condition. Usually, 

 when this larvte is found, it is the only food in 

 the crop. 



"Fourth. To the present date, I have not dis- 

 covered the first particle of vegetable matter in 

 the crop of a single bird." 



For the New England Farmer. 



FHOM THE SANDWICH ISLAISTDS. 



MaTcaioao, Maui, Dec. 21, 1857. 

 Gentlemen : — Allow me to give you some ac- 

 count of our farming operations at Makawao and 

 vicinity during the year now drawing to a close. 

 I find that I wrote you in February, soon after 

 our farmers had finished, as they supposed, sow- 

 ing their wheat. Some two thousand acres were 

 sown, came up well, and we were cheered with 

 the prospect of securing a fair crop. Some of 

 the wheat was up to the knees, and all looked 

 exceedingly well, when our fields were attacked 

 with such a host of caterpillars as we had never 

 seen. Heretofore we have not much feared this 

 insect. We have always had them more or less, 

 but they have left us after a few days, and given 

 place to our old enemy, the cut-worm. Not so 

 this year. They approached us on the side next 

 the sea, and swept all before them. More than 

 half of the wheat sown was swept as clean as it 

 could have been done with a sickle, and in a few 

 days the fields had the appearance of stubble 

 fields. Nothing dismayed, the farmers plowed 

 and re-soAved their fields, and some of them lost 

 the second sowing and thrust in the third. Those 

 of us who are farthest from the sea suff'ered much 

 less from this insect. Our wheat grew rapidly, 

 but in May, when too late to re-sow, we found 

 that our fields were destroyed or greatly injured 

 by the rust. Some hundred acres were thus lost 

 or nearly lost. I had scarcely my seed. I. J. 

 Gower, Esq., my neighbor, tells me that he had 

 not a bushel of good wheat. Kekaha, the most 

 prosperous Hawaiian wheat-grower I have, lost 

 fifty acres from this cause. In Makawao proper, 

 we had so much rain during harvest time that a 

 portion of our crop was injured, and just as we 

 began to cut the grain, nearly every man, woman 

 and child in the place was attacked with the in- 

 fluenza, so that nothing could be done, though 

 the weather was fine. This visitation occasioned 

 another loss, some of the grain spoiling ere it 

 could be stacked. For a while the prospect of a 

 wheat crop was very much darkened. I feared 



at one time that there would not be enough raised 

 for seed for the coming year, and such was ihe 

 impression among us generally. 



Now the grain is cut, threshed, sold and most 

 of it manufactured into flour, and much to my 

 surprise and gratification, I am able to report 

 that there have been sold to the Hawaiian Flour 

 Company some 15,040 bushels of wheat, by the 

 farmers of Makawao and vicinity, and there are 

 some hundreds of bushels reserved for seed for 

 next year. And most of this wheat is of an ex- 

 cellent quality. For some of it the agent of the 

 Company paid $1,20; so down to $1,10, $1,00, 

 and a small quantity ninety cents and seventy- 

 five cents. God has been better to us than our 

 fears ; and we have occasion to bless His holy 

 name. 



Of other crops there has been an increase, so 

 far as attention has been turned to them. Very 

 little corn has been raised by our farmers at 

 Makawao, as there is but little demand for it, 

 and no grain is so soon destroyed by the weevil. 

 But the crop of oats has never been so large as 

 this year. They are easily raised and easily kept. 

 The only diflficulty we find is the smallness of the 

 market. Beans also have been raised in large 

 quantities, and they might be greatly increased, 

 but for the smallness of our market. The mill 

 company have not sold as much of their flour 

 as they expected, though of an excellent quality, 

 because a good deal of foreign flour from the 

 United States and California has been imported. 

 This has all along been our trouble in respect to 

 our crops, the uncertainty and fluctuation of our 

 markets ; and it is very difficult to regulate such 

 matters. I don't know, however, that our trou- 

 bles are any greater than yours in this respect. 

 The thing which we most need in this selfish 

 world, is competition. This would benefit all 

 classes. At present the mill company, composed 

 of as good men as we have at the islands, and as 

 good men as you have in the United States or 

 England, have not that motive to be economical 

 in manufacturing their flour and in selling it that 

 they would have were there another mill. In my 

 opinion, flour could be manufactured at Honolulu 

 at much cheaper rate than it is now done — at nearly 

 half the exj^ense. I hear, too, that the company 

 refuse this year to allow some mercantile houses 

 to sell their flour, as they did last year, appoint- 

 ing one of their own number to sell all. This 

 has proved a great injury to themselves and to 

 wheat-growers. Some 1350 barrels they have 

 now on hand, besides a good deal of wheat- 

 Much of this flour might have been sold, but for 

 the neglect or refusal to secure merchants as 

 agents. The consequence has been the sending 

 to San Francisco for flour while Hawaiian remains 

 on hand. And if this shall become a drug, the 

 company will gravely inform our wheat-growers 

 in 1858 that the price of M'heat must come down. 

 Would men act on the principle laid down by 

 the Saviour, in the golden rule, there would be 

 no necessity of competition, but as things now 

 are, we greatly need it, and shall ere long seek 

 for something of the sort. It is needed not only 

 in reference to wheat-growing and manufactur- 

 ing, but in reference to other things. Just uoav, 

 it costs more to go down to Honolulu, some sev- 

 enty miles, a single night only being needed, 

 than it costs to go from Boston to Bufialo, not 



