14 
MAKING WISE USE OF ALL OUR LANDS. 
Address of Doctor E. V. Wilcox. 
I think that we have heard so many times that the develop- 
ment of industry in any country depends upon its agriculture 
that sometimes we forget how absolutely and eternally true that 
is. And when it comes to considering the use of land in Hawaii, 
one of the things that I think would strike the average observer 
is the enormous quantities of land which are now made little 
use of. 
Naturally the very first question that we ask concerning those 
lands is, what can be done with them, and how can we get some- 
thing doing on those lands that will remain in operation and 
develop an agriculture that will be permanent? 
One of the points which lies at the very foundation of estab- 
lishing an agricultural system in any country is the matter of 
developing a home, and by a home I mean a home with some 
sentiment attached to it. There is no use of ever imagining 
that a population of small homesteaders can be established in any 
country where they cannot develop homes ; where the conditions 
are such that they cannot make homes that are attractive, be- 
cause a home that simply consists of a few acres of land where 
some potatoes can be grown and a few other things to eat, and 
where a house can be put up which will protect them from the 
rats and other vermin, does not constitute a home. 
It is so evident in going about among these tracts of land 
where homesteads ought to be, and where all the natural condi- 
tions are favorable for homesteading that this one idea is largely 
absent. Merely a building and a plot of land are to be seen and 
you wonder how any one could be prevailed "upon to stay upon 
the land much longer than is absolutely required to make enough 
money to get away. 
Recently I had occasion, in connection with some other gentle- 
men, to see what was an awful example of the conditions which 
I have just described. In the course of our stay on Hawaii we 
came across an old German who was living on a small home- 
stead, a man who told us his age was sixty years. He had 
cleared a small space in the midst of a veritable wilderness and 
put up a little hut where he could crawl in out of the rain, and 
here he was serving out his time as a convict serves out his 
sentence until such time as he had fulfilled the requirements of 
the law bearing upon the residential clause of the Homestead 
Act, and hoping that sometime he might prove up on this land. 
He raised enough sweet potatoes to eat ; and he informed us that 
he expects to go away and work where he can earn some money 
after he has acquired title to this land. 
Until we understand how to produce things that can be mar- 
keted with profit, so that there will be something to hold a man, 
