HAWAII EXPERIMENT STATION. 369 



than coffee. A typical 100-acre farm formerly in coffee now consists 

 of 20 acres cane, 15 coffee, 15 orange, 2 lemon, 4 bananas, 1 pineapples, 

 1 bamboo, 4 forage crops, 2 pasture, 6 experimental garden, 4 pre- 

 pared for planting bananas, and the balance forest and the lands sur- 

 rounding the home buildings. Most of the Olaa and almost all of the 

 Hilo and Puna coffee orchards have been pulled up and cane planted 

 in their stead, or have been simply deserted by their owners. Deserted 

 homes characterize the formerly prosperous Olaa colony. The loss 

 of capital in this one district amounts to over $2,000,000 in the last 

 five years. 



The cause of the failure of the coffee industry in Hawaii has been 

 primarily the abnormally low prices of coffee, due to overproduction in 

 coffee-growing countries all over the world. Annexation made the 

 sugar planters wealthy because Hawaiian sugar was at once admitted 

 duty free. It also brought ruin to the coffee planters because it 

 placed Hawaiian coffee in competition with the South and Central 

 American duty-free coffee, whereas there had been up to the time of 

 annexation a duty on foreign coffees imported into Hawaii. It reaches 

 its optimum development at elevations of from 1,300 to 2,500 feet 

 above sea level, and in this Territory that belt is, on all the islands, 

 one where the climatic conditions are ideal. If coffee can be restored 

 by Congress to the same status which it enjoyed previous to American 

 control, Hawaii and Porto Rico can produce within ten years all of the 

 amount consumed by the United States. A duty of from 2£ to 5 cents 

 per pound on coffee would do more toward making Hawaii a land of 

 prosperous homesteads and prosperous people than any other legislative 

 measure which could be taken. The coffee lands lie above the cane lands 

 and the development of the coffee industry will thus not interfere with 

 cane growing. But in case sugar should even go down to such a point 

 that its cultivation would prove unprofitable, at least a portion of the 

 cane lands in some portions of the islands would be capable of profit- 

 able conversion into coffee. There has been enough experience in 

 coffee growing in these islands to develop a distinctly Hawaiian system 

 of cultivation and treatment. The mistakes made by new men in a 

 new land with a new and untried crop, such, for instance, as that of 

 using Ceylon methods in Olaa, have been costly, but such work will 

 not have to be done over again. There are still many men who believe 

 in the future of coffee in Hawaii. These are maintaining their planta- 

 tions at least possible cost, but with a view to deriving at least a living 

 from the land. The low prices for the crop have weeded out all except 

 these who were conducting the business on an economical basis. 



There are, at a low estimate, 200,000 acres of coffee lands on the 



four islands, Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii, most of it still virgin 



forest. And there is another 100,000 acres and more which would not 



fall within the belt of optimum conditions, but where coffee could 



H. Doc. 334 24 



