HAWAII EXPERIMENT STATION. 373 



present a very unfavorable appearance give very fine results. But I should estimate 

 that on all of the islands there is in the neighborhood of half a million acres which 

 could be utilized, either wholly in the production of coffee or of coffee in combina- 

 tion with other crops. 



J. F. Brown, commissioner of public lands, in 1898 estimated that there were 76,270 

 acres of Government land suitable for coffee, and there must be at least five times 

 this amount of land held by corporations and individuals. In making this estimate 

 I have taken into consideration only lands above the cane belt— say those lying at 

 altitudes of from 1,000 to 5,000 feet. 



Immediate relief to the present situation could be afforded if the United States 

 Government would give our coffees preference in supplying the needs of the Army 

 and Navy, and I would suggest that it might be advisable to bring this fact before 

 the Department of Agriculture at Washington. 



MISCELLANEOUS CROPS. 



Corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, turnips, beets, and Portuguese 

 onions can be fairly successfully cultivated, the one drawback being the cutworm. I 

 have seen a quart of cutworms dug out of a surface 6 feet square, and it is needless to 

 say that under such conditions nothing can be cultivated. 



All of our Hawaiian lands produce natural forage crops when the forest is first 

 cleared, viz, honohono (Opelismenus compositus) and pualele (Sonchus oleraceus), but 

 after the land has been cropped for a certain length of time these plants can not be 

 depended upon, and sorghum, bunch grass, or alfalfa should be planted. 



Good dairy stock can be purchased from ranchers, although the price is very high. 

 Cows give as much milk as in California, but it is not as rich nor is the butter 

 as sweet and waxy as that of California. Beef, butter, and hogs command ready 

 sale at high prices at all times, and the possibility of maintaining a dairy exclusively 

 on cultivated forage crops is well worthy of your attention. 



Speaking in a general way, after a family has been located six months on a coffee 

 plantation, the living expenses of that family should not exceed $15 per month, pro- 

 vided the cutworm problem can be solved. 



The agricultural possibilities of these islands are untried, but the first step in 

 developing the lands of higher altitudes should be the placing of some staple 

 adapted to this section on a firm basis, and this can best be done with coffee. Coffee 

 should become one of the staples of these islands. But unless it be protected to the 

 same extent as rice and sugar, it is folly for anyone to consider the cultivation of 

 this crop. 



Neither corn, potatoes, nor garden vegetables can be profitably cultivated to any 

 great extent owing to the lack of a market. The only regular source of demand is 

 the city of Honolulu, and as the white population are the only consumers of Euro- 

 pean vegetables, this demand is limited; consequently any supply over that required 

 by a population of 10,000 can not be consumed and an extensive production of vege- 

 tables is bound to end in failure through lack of a consuming market. 



What is known as the Kula district on Maui is used exclusively for the cultivation 

 of corn and potatoes, and although the area cultivated does not exceed 1,000 acres, at 

 times crops have been allowed to rot in the fields owing to the prices having become 

 so low that it did not pay to gather them. 



Mr. R. H. Long, who has raised vegetables successfully in Petaluma for the San 

 Francisco market, has undertaken the cultivation of cabbage, tomatoes, cauliflower, 

 celery, beets, turnips, and other garden truck, in the districts of Weimea, Hawaii, 

 and while he has met a number of reverses through cutworms and heavy storms, he 

 is still sanguine as to the ultimate success, but he expects to supply all the markets on 

 these islands from a farm of 100 acres. 



