378 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



is responsible for much of the trouble. Chickens flourish better in 

 the higher localities. In earlier da} T s chickens were apparently plen- 

 tiful and sold for $3 per dozen, while now the market price is $15 per 

 dozen, much of the local demand being supplied by imported fowls. 

 The chicken industry, including eggs, amounts annually to $25,000 or 

 more. 



Turkey raising seems' to be attended with the same difficulties as 

 chickens. The price paid for dressed turkeys is about 30 cents per 

 pound. In the mountains there are wild turkeys, or rather domesti- 

 cated turkeys, which have found their way to the mountains and have 

 reared broods. This seems evidence that turkeys might be raised 

 under proper conditions and put on the market at reasonable prices. 



SUGGESTED LINES OF INQUIRY. 



The economic conditions of Hawaii are such that new industries can 

 be established only with the greatest difficulty. In common with all 

 other old insular regions there has been a multitude of serious insect 

 and animal pests introduced, not through intent but as a concomitant 

 of commerce. In this regard the history of Hawaiian agriculture is 

 parallel with that of many other tropical islands, such as the Fiji Islands 

 and the British West Indies. Plants may be introduced without their 

 insect enemies, or insects which in their native country are kept in 

 check b}^ natural enemies, and parasites may here breed in enormous 

 numbers and adapt themselves to new host plants, to the detriment of 

 the farmer. Hawaii is full of ornamental exotics which have become 

 weeds, and of Chinese, Japanese, Australian, American, and Old World 

 insects which, free from all natural check, ravage alike the native veg- 

 etation and the cultivated crops. The lot of the farmer is thus in a 

 way more difficult than in continental regions. The battle is a con- 

 tinuous one. The practical entomologist thus finds here a wider field 

 for work, and although much has been done, a vast amount of work 

 is yet to be accomplished. Some crops are abnormally free from 

 blights and disease. Others fall a ready prey to hosts of enemies 

 whose attacks the plants themselves are not prepared to resist nor 

 do the farmers know how to combat. What is true of insect pests is 

 also true of fungus and bacterial diseases. The field of investigation 

 is a new one, hardly yet touched upon. 



Lower world's prices for sugar means a narrowing of the margin of 

 profit. With such a fall in prices and profits must come the substitu- 

 tion of more careful handling, better cultivation, conservation of the 

 irrigation water (where used), and a more skillful fertilization of the 

 soil. The Hawaiian sugar planters are prone to ignore these factors 

 and to ascribe all of their benefits to cheap labor. If planters in other 

 parts of the tropics can grow sugar at a profit in the open competition 



