THE JHAWAII AN 
F0RE8TER I AGRICULTURIST 
Vol. V JULY, 1908 No. 7 
Although tropical agriculture offers splendid opportunities for 
those who engage in it under proper conditions, there are many 
enterprises which from the nature of things are not likely ever to 
repay the expense of endeavoring to start them and which careful 
foresight would have chronicled beforehand among the list of 
failures. 
Among the most profitable agricultural industries are to be 
included most of those which look to the satisfying on an estab- 
lished food demand, for the market for such commodities in- 
creases arithmetically with that of the world's, population. It is 
also found that as education and the general standards of living 
advance, the per capita consumption of most food stuffs which are 
not essentially necessary, increases in geometrical proportion. 
When such articles of diet require special conditions of climate 
which confines their production to a small proportion of the 
world's area compared with the diffused market they have to 
supply, the potential expansion of such industries as the canning 
of tropical fruits, the preparation of vanilla extract, the cultiva- 
tion of cocoa, of coffee and of tea, when engaged in under suit- 
able labor conditions, are well nigh illimitable. 
Another class of flourishing agricultural enterprises, whose fu- 
ture is equally as promising as of the food stuffs alluded to, is 
represented by such industries as the production of tobacco, rub- 
ber and camphor, the prosperity of which industries is, as in the 
case of the former class of food stuffs, dependent upon a rapidly 
increasing per capita consumption, favorable labor facilities and 
a restricted area of cultivation. 
Generally speaking, when these three elements are present an 
agricultural industry has every likelihood of succeeding; when 
one of the elements is uncertain it will be precarious, but when 
more than one element is not assured the enterprise will be im- 
possible as a financial enterprise. The rapidly increasing per 
capita consumption of sugar, combined with a relatively restricted 
area of cultivation, would be unavailing to make this industry 
a success, were it not for favorable labor conditions, and in pro- 
portion as these are unsettled, the industry itself suffers. 
