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occasionally  appear.  I know,  for  example,  a place  where  one 
million  dollars  was  expended  in  a sugar  plantation  before  they 
found  that  the  only  obstacle  to  success  was  lack  of  water.  1 
know  another  plantation  in  which  the  shortage  last  year,  because 
of  lack  of  water,  was  8,000  tons  of  sugar,  and  the  prospective 
shortage  for  this  year  will  be  10,000  tons.  I know  another 
plantation  where  last  year’s  shortage  was  3,000  tons.  I have  not 
visited  all  the  plantations.  My  inquriies  concerning  losses  were 
necessarily  limited  to  a few.  But,  taking  all  these  facts  and  con- 
ditions into  consideration,  it  is  clear  that  sugar  failure  in  Hawaii 
during  the  average  year  must  be  far  greater  than  the  casual  in- 
quirer would  imagine. 
I have  introduced  my  subject  in  this  way  because  it  is  im- 
portant that  your  first  impressions  of  the  water  resources  investi- 
gations now  being  started  should  be  those  of  a straightforward, 
rock-bottom,  business  transaction,  worthy  of  your  interest  and 
support  as  business  men. 
Even  had  not  the  need  for  information  concerning  water  sup- 
plies already  been  felt  in  the  Territory,  the  future  alone  would 
render  an  investigation  essential.  In  the  development  of  the 
agricultural  industry  here,  there  has  been  a fairly  large  amount 
of  elbow  room.  Only  now  and  then  have  you  clashed  into  dis- 
pute over  water  supplies.  If  one  man  has  not  had  sufficient 
water  for  his  crops,  the  reason  has  not  usually  been  that  some 
other  man  is  tapping  his  source  of  supply.  But  the  Territory 
is  growing.  You  all  expect  it  to  increase  manifold  in  pro- 
ductivity. Every  new  field  imposes  a new  demand  on  the  avail- 
able water  of  the  Territory.  Questions  as  to  the  most  beneficial 
use  of  water  will  wax  acute.  Information  concerning  the  ca- 
pacity of  sources  of  supply  will  be  worth  a millionfold  more  than 
the  cost  of  procuring  it.  The  point  is,  however,  that  it  takes 
time  to  procure  this  information,  and  if  the  Territory  is  caught 
without  it  on  the  day  that  it  becomes  essential  to  industrial 
progress,  then  will  the  people  look  back  with  regret  oil  a lost  op- 
portunity. 
The  investigation  of  water  resources  now  being  organized  will 
consist  of  two  broad  divisions.  First,  the  measurement  of  river 
flow ; second,  the  investigation  of  underground  water  supplies. 
River  flow  measurement  means  the  daily  observation  of  the 
amount  of  water  flowing  in  a stream  for  a period  of  years  suffi- 
cient to  determine  the  habits  of  the  stream  and  its  capacity  for 
service.  You  know  that  a river  will  flow  sometimes  high  and 
sometimes  low,  but  unless  you  have  made  an  investigation,  you 
have  no  idea  how  many  acres  it  will  irrigate  during  low  stages, 
or  how  great  a volume  is  wasted  into  the  sea  during  floods. 
In  this  Territory,  you  have  some  unusually  good  ditch  sys- 
tems. I have  rarely  seen  better,  but  they  do  not  in  any  case  use 
their  sources  of  supply  with  maximum  efficiency.  Sometimes 
they  run  short  of  water  and  some  of  the  fields  lying  under  the 
