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In these islands it is only at great cost of artificial fertilization 
that the soil can sustain the enormous strain of the single crop 
industry to which the greater part of its area is subjected. Sugar 
plantations also where deep tillage was adopted owe much of their 
fame as heavy producers to that method, and in some instances 
seasonable fallowing of the land in lieu of rotation of crops, the 
latter impracticable because of the extensive scale of sugar raising 
here, has been necessary to salvation of the soil. 
Dr. Norgaard's account of the international convention of vete- 
rinarians in Toronto, embodied in his report in this number, will 
be read with great interest by stockmen and dairymen. His keen 
disappointment at the omission of a report upon bovine tubercu- 
losis in the proceedings will be appreciated by readers of our re- 
view, in a former number, of the famous report of last year to 
which he refers and which had aroused his expectations of some- 
thing equally good, if not better, at this year's session. It is 
gratifying, however, to hear that our veterinarian was able to avail 
himself most profitably of opportunities to refresh his store of 
science in Washington in the course of his journey, as also very 
pleasing to be told that the advancement made in the control, pre- 
vention and suppression of annual diseases in these islands was 
— both at the convention and at the Department of Agriculture in 
Washington — quite well recognized. 
Every now and then there appears in the newspaper press 
opinions, of professedly sophisticated authorship, to the effect 
that small farming or diversified agriculture in Hawaii can never 
prosper or make anybody prosperous. Both the trade returns and 
the freight manifests and waybills of our steamers and railroads, 
together with the perpetually high scale of prices for food prod- 
ucts that are capable of abundant production in Hawaii, furnish 
all the argument needed utterly to confute such pessimistic and 
destructive opinion. There are only needed, to make diversified 
agriculture on the part of small landholders one of the greatest 
elements of Hawaii's prosperity, intelligent methods of cultiva- 
tion, adequate transportation at reasonable cost and well devised 
marketing arrangements. 
An article on the air plant, by Professor MacCaughey of the 
College of Hawaii, is in type and will appear in the December 
number. 
