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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
^roitnit tk 
SANDWICH ISLANDS NOTES. 
I have long promised myself the pleasure of 
writing you a few lines, and take this opportu¬ 
nity of doing bo. I Lave been a subscriber to 
your valuable paper for a number of years in 
this out-of-the-way spot of earth in the North 
Pacific, and derive as much pleas tiro in reading 
it here an I did, 2.3 yours ago, in Oazcnovia, Madi¬ 
son Co., N. Y. Never Laving seen anything 
about our inlands in your columns, and thinking 
you would like to bear a abort account from a 
workingman, I will endeavor to tell you briclly 
what we are doing hero. 
In the first place, sugar is king here just as 
much as cotton was in the South before the re¬ 
bellion ; its production is the principal industry. 
3Ve get from 4,001.) to 11,000 pounds of sugar 
from au aero of canes. There arc several kinds 
of cane planted, but the Otahaitc cane succeeds 
the best with us, and it is now being introduced 
on most of the plantations. It lias been known 
to yield 800 and 900 pounds of sugar from a 500 
gallon clarifier of juice. Our method of boiling 
is in open steam evaporators, finishing in a vac¬ 
uum pan. We make first, second and third sugar 
- that iH, wo boil the Juice, which makes first 
sugar, then boil the molasses from that, which 
makes second sugar, then again boil the molasses 
that is drained from the second, which makes 
third sugar. Our first sugar is nearly white; 
the second from a light golden yellow to dark 
yellow; the third, which is much darker, goes to 
tho California refiner. The residue of the mo¬ 
lasses Is thrown away, as it will not pay to ex¬ 
port it, and there are so many restrictions on 
tho manufacture of rum, that we cannot utilize 
it in that way. 
In some places people rattoon their canes two, 
three, four and five times, hut here we do it only 
once, as wo find that constant rattooniug wears 
the land out too rapidly, and also that there is 
more profit in tmr present practice, as we do not 
need to let the land rest so long before replant¬ 
ing, as would he necessary if we raltooned more. 
We use no manure here yet, hut will have to 
come to it eventually. It takes from 1(1 to 18 
months to mature a crop of plant cane, but rat- 
toons mature every year. I am now working as 
overseer on a plantation where wo expect to 
make 1,300 to 1000 turn of sugar this year. 
There arc about 200 people employed on the es¬ 
tate natives and Chinese, f t of the latter. 
Bice is another of our heavy crops. On the 
Leeward island, where there is plenty of water, 
they get from three to eight thousand pounds of 
paddy from an aero, and by planting in February 
or March, they can get two crops a year, which 
nearly doubles the amount. Coffee also does 
well, yielding from 8 to 12 pounds per tree. A 
now plantation commences to hear the second 
year from planting. Castor-oil beans grow wild 
all over tho country and bear twice a year, hut 
wc have no market for them. Tho Cassava or 
Manioc plant also does well. I have seen 10,000 
pounds of starch made from one acre of roots. 
J have also seen roots four feet long und from 
10 to 14 inches in circumference at the butt, ta¬ 
pering iiko a ciUTot to a point. The field had 
been planted a little over two years. Tho plant 
grows steadily winter and summer, until three 
years ohl, mid then begins to rot; but tho young 
tubers arc Continually growing to replace the old 
ones that have lotted. It is a very simple crop 
(o raise ; the only trouble with it is to thoroughly 
plow the land, then plant the slips in furrows 
the same as cane, leaving one end out of tho 
ground throe or four inches. From this the 
Bprouts spring, and after that hoe it once, when 
these are 18 iuobes ubovo ground; then hand- 
weed it once or twice and leave it until ready to 
dig. The whole apparatus for making the starch, 
buildings included, would nut cost ovar $2,000 
or ifll,000 where there is ii small water-power. 
Wo use tho etarch here for starching clothes, 
and find it hotter than the imported articio. Jt 
is also a splendid diet for children and sick 
people. When it is properly made it is equal to 
Vegetables too, are plenty, and grow well, but 
aro not much attended to except in the seaports, 
and there principally by Chinese. Com, Irish 
and Sweet potatoes, Radishes, Onions, Egg 
Plant, Tomatoes, Lettuce, Lumpkins, all do well. 
Peanuts yield abundantly two crops a year. 
Taro is tho principal food of the natives; there 
are a great many kinds of it. 
This is also a great stock country. Hornod 
cattle, horses, sheep, goats and hogs abound; 
there arc a good many of all these wild in the 
mountains. Homo of our cattle ranches have 
from 3,000 to 15,000 head branded. Home of 
them have steam works for boiling down, as they 
kill their sheep and cattle just for their hides 
and tallow. In tho towns, beef sells at 5<v8e. 
per pound, but in the country prime beet is 
slaughtered and delivered at the house for 2 (a 
4c. per pound: mutton, 25f«50c. per quarter; 
chickens, 25c.; turkeys, 37j^»<>2J£o.; ducks, 
37'.jra:50c. each; sweet potatoes, 50c. oor hag of 
00 to 80 lbs.: bananas, 12J^<g)50c. per bunch, ac¬ 
cording to size ; oranges, 50c.<& rl per 100, and 
other truck in proportion. 
Our laws are as strict and as well administered 
as laws are in any part of the world—thanks to 
that much-abused class, the American mission¬ 
aries, who made and framed tho first laws in the 
country. Education is compulsory, parents be¬ 
ing by law obliged to send their children to 
school until a certain a go. I have been in a good 
many parts of tho world, hut have never seen so 
few uneducated as ate to he found here. In¬ 
deed, you can hardly find one in u thousand, be¬ 
tween the ages of 8 and (i(), who cannot read the 
newspaper and Mi bio and w ho does not do so. 
Taxes arc reasonable, being as followsPer¬ 
sona) (axes, $.5 on every man between 18 and GO 
years, divided thus Poll tax, *1 ; road, *2; 
school, $2. Property lax is one-half of one 
per cent, on all over $260. Horses, young and 
old, 75o. each; dogs, $1—not enough; carts 
and drays, $2 ; pleasure carriages of all kinds, 
$.i each. Cattle, sheep and hogs are assessed, at 
a valuation, and go in property tax. Cattle in 
largo herds are, in general, assessed at 5 per 
head, not counting calves; sheep, 37Jfp7’60c. 
each, with a rough guess at the number. Saddle 
horses are plenty ; so much so, that wc hardly 
walk a mile a week except when at work. Their 
prices are anywhere from $1 to $100, according 
to quality ; hut one can get a very good nag for 
about $15 that will carry a man 40 or 50 miles a 
day, week in and week out, with no other feed 
than grass. 
Speaking of grass, there is plenty of it, some 
good and some bad, principally native to the 
country. There are two kinds of foreign grass 
which are plentiful; one is the Chili clover, the 
other is what I take to ho Bermuda grass, from 
tho description I have read of it. I have seen 
acres covered with it in a solid mat, from a foot 
to 18 inches deep. There is only one thing about 
it. that 1 do not understand, which is that this 
goes (o seed, and I understand, by reading the 
Ri’uai., that tho Bermuda grass does not seed. 
This can be propagated by cutting a bandfull of 
tho grass and throwing it down in soft, damp 
soil anywhere, or by the roots or seed. It is 
splendid feed for horses, cattle, sheep, goats or 
hogs. The native name for the grass is Mani- 
ania. 
Hawaii. W. II. Stephenson. 
advantage. This battle was continued for fully 
twenty minutes, when the snake managed to get 
his tail out of the water and clasped around the 
root of one of tho willow's mentioned as over¬ 
hanging the pool. The battle wrb then up, for 
the snake gradually put coil after coil around the 
root, with each one dragging the fish toward tho 
land. When half its body was coiled it un¬ 
loosened its first hold and stretched the end of 
its tail out in every direction, and finding 
another root, made fast, and now, using both, 
dragged tho trout out on the gravel hank. It 
nOw had it under control, and uncoiling, the 
snake dragged (he fish fully ten feet up the 
hank, and I suppose would have gorged him. 
We lulled the snake and replaced the trout in the 
water, as we thought that he deserved liberty. 
Hu was apparently unhurt, and in a few moments 
darted off. That the water-suuko of our Cali¬ 
fornia brooks will prey upon the young trout, 
und also smaller and less active fishes, I have no¬ 
ticed, but never have seen an attack on a fish so 
large, or one more hotly contested.” 
®k ijorsnnan. 
HEAVY DRAFT HORSES. 
In Boston. New York, and other citios, large, 
powerful, draft horses are selling at very remu¬ 
nerative prices, consequently many might be 
bred by fanners who have no inclination to raise 
trotters, and a more useful race of plow teams 
would thus he brought into existence. There 
arc at the present time a great many mares 
which arc comparatively small, but which would 
breed fine stock from our great draft, stallions. 
There will soon he an increased demand for 
these horses in consequeneo of their exportation 
to l.ngland, which lias already begun, and be¬ 
cause the great railway companies find these 
heavy horses aro far more suitable for moving 
cars through cities from one depot to another. 
Besides this, there is a growing tendency to use 
more substantial agricultural implements, and a 
riding sulky-plow is now being made to the 
number of thousands in tho West, and these are 
pretty weighty and will require strong horses to 
work them. There aro already a great many 
stallions spread over the West and in Canada, 
and stallions aro advertised to ho Bold or let 
for tho season, so doubtless tho services of 
horses will be obtainable by every one who may 
take a little trouble. 
The United Rtatea is at the present day im¬ 
proving her agricultural live stock of all vari¬ 
eties in a very rapid manner, and it only requires 
a better system of managing grass laud and of 
restoring fertility to the over -> cultivated and 
over-cropped soil to insure a long period of agri¬ 
cultural prosperity. Geo. Gajidneb, 
—--— 
HORSE-TAMING. 
m Bafitralisf, 
SNAKES CATCHING FISH. 
Arrowroot starch, and nothing but a chemical 
test can show the difference. 1 think that it 
would do well in Florida, Alabama, .South Caro¬ 
lina or Louisiana, and would ho a fortune to tho 
man who stated its cultivation, if it does any¬ 
thing near as well as it docs here. There is only 
one small factory on the Islands for tho manu¬ 
facture of it, as from 30 to 50 tons per year sup¬ 
ply the Island market, though I hear that two 
small lots have been lately sent to Australia, 
where it has met with a favorable reception. It 
sells here for Gc. per pound wholesale, and the 
actual cost for raising and manufacturing is not 
over l. ! . ; c. per pound. 1 speak from experience, 
as 1 worked in the factory one season. 
Fruits. Oranges and Limes are plenty in parts 
of the Islands. Also Guavas, .Mangoes, Gape 
Gooseberries, Ohelas, Bananas of about 20 dif¬ 
ferent kinds, Melons, (Water and Musk,) Pouch¬ 
es. Gocoauuts, and tho Oliiu, or native apple. 
A, W. Chase, of the United States Coast Sur¬ 
vey, describes, in a note to tho editor of Popular 
Science Monthly, a contest which lie and a brother 
officer witnessed iu 1867 on the Purissimu, a small 
trout-stream about twenty-four miles from San 
Francisco: 
“ We had been fishing on the stream, nndoame 
to a high hank which overlooked a transparent 
pool of water, about ten feet in diameter and four 
feet in depth. The pool was fringed with w illows, 
and on one side was a small gravel bank. The 
trout at first sight was lying in mid-water, head¬ 
ing up stream. ] l was, as after-ward ascertained, 
fully nine inches in length a very desirable 
prize for an angler. While studying how to cast 
our dies to secure him, a novel fisherman ap¬ 
peared, and so quick were liis actions that we 
suspended our own to witness them. This new 
enemy of the trout was a large w-ater-snake of 
the common variety, striped black and yellow. 
He swam tip the pool on the surface until over 
the trout, when he mado a dive, and by a dox- 
teriotts movement siezed the trout in such a 
lashion that the jays of the snake closed its 
mouth. The fight then commenced. 
lhe trout had the use of its tail and fins, and 
could drag the snake from the surface; when 
near the bottom, however, tho snake made use 
of its tail by winding it around every stone or 
root it could reach. After securing this tail- 
hold it could drag the trout toward the bank, 
but, on letting go, tho trout, would have a new I 
Some time ago, a person in the north of En¬ 
gland who had used electricity for the purpose 
of horse-taming was prosecuted for cruelty. In 
Franco it appears that electricity is about to he 
applied to the practical driving of restive or slug¬ 
gish animals. From the French papers we learn 
tliat the horse of the future is not to be driven 
by ordinary reins, hut by electricity combined 
with them. The coachman is to havo under his 
seat an electro-magnet ie apparatus, to ho worked 
by means of a little handle. One wire is carried 
through the reiu to the bit, and another to the 
crupper, so that a current once set tip goes the 
entire length of the animal along the spine. A 
snddeu shock will, w e are assured, stop the most 
violent runaway, or tame tho most obstinate jib¬ 
ber. The creature, however strong and however 
vicious, is “at Once transformed into a sort of 
inoffensive liorso of wood, with tho feet firmly 
nailed to the ground.” By a succession of small 
shocks tho opposite result is secured, and the 
animal is suddenly endowed with vigor, and in¬ 
creases its speed without the application of the 
whip. Thu Riedo congratulates the author of 
the new system, Mona. F. Fancher, on “an in¬ 
vention as original as it is salutary.” 
BEARING-REINS FOR HORSES. 
The British Medical Journal thus protests: 
Physiology protests against the strained and arti¬ 
ficial attitude which the horse is compelled to 
assume, and which must certainly lessen his 
power of drawing w eights, llumiuiity and com¬ 
mon sense protest against the infliction of this 
constant gagging strain upon upon the sensitive 
mouth of an animal whose mouth is used by the 
driver as tho principal meaus of guiding and di¬ 
recting him. Nor can any one who has any real 
knowledge of. or pleasure in tho study of ani¬ 
mal forms, feel otherwise than gratified at the 
tree and unconstrained attitude of a horse driven 
without bearing-reins. No good coachman uses 
bearing-reins fur a horse from which he desires 
to get the full amount of work, or which he de¬ 
sires to leave at ease. Their employment is, 
indeed, merely a senseless fashion, which has 
absolutely nothing to recommend it; and in 
favor of abolition there are reasons so many and 
decided that we hope that not many years will 
pass before they are not onlv disused, hut for¬ 
gotten. 
Cheese Straton.— Take a quarter of a pound of 
flour, and two ounces of butter broken into the 
flour with tho fingers, and rubbed in till smooth, 
two ounces of good cheese grated on a bread- 
grater, the yelks of two eggs and tlio white of 
one; season to tasto with cayenne pepper and a 
small pinch of salt.; mix all together, roll it out 
to the thickness of rather less than a quarter of 
an inch, place it on a well-buttered tin, and cut 
it with a paste-cutter into narrow strips, four 
or five inches in length. They must bo re¬ 
moved from the tin with care, so as not to break 
them, after having bceu baked in a moderate 
oven five or six minutes. Serve up very hot. 
Orange Flummery. —Boil four largo calves’ 
feet in three quarts of water. The best feet for 
this purpose aro those that, are scalded and 
scraped, hut not skinned. After they havo 
boiled slowly about five hours, put In the yellow- 
rind of four large oranges, pared very thin and 
cut small, and several sticks of cinnamon broken 
up, and a dozen bitter almonds slightly pounded. 
Then lot it boil an hour longer, till tho moat all 
drops from tho bones and is reduced to shreds, 
and till the liquid is little more than a quart. 
Strain it through a sieve into a pan, and set it 
in a cold place till next morning, when it ought 
to he a solid cake. Scrape olT the fat and sedi¬ 
ment carefully, or it will not he dear when 
melted. Out the cake into pieces, put it into a 
porcelain kettle, with half a pound of doublo- 
refinod loaf-sugar, broken up, and melt it over 
tho fire, adding, when it has entirely dissolved, 
tho juice of six large oranges. Next stir in, 
gradually, the yelks of six eggs, well-beaten, 
and continue stirring till it. has boiled five min¬ 
utes ; then tako it off tho fire, transfer it to a 
broad pan, and set it on ice or in cold water. 
Continue stirring until it is quite cold, hut not 
sot. Wet some moldB with cold water, put the 
mixture into them, and set in a cool place or 
on ice to congeal. To ho eaten with whipped 
cream, or a rich boiled custard. 
Orange Tarts. —Tako six or seven fine, largo 
oranges, roll them under your hand on a table to 
increase the juice, and then squeeze them 
through a strainer over half a pound or more 
of crashed sugar. Mix the orange-juice and 
tho sugar thoroughly together. Break twelve 
eggs into a large, shallow pan, and boat them 
till thick and smooth; then stir in, gradually, 
the orange-juice and sugar. Line some patty 
pans with good puff-paate, having first buttered 
them inside; then fill with t he orange mixture 
and set them immediately into a brisk oven. 
Bake tho tarts a light brown, and when done, 
set them to cool. When quite cold, take them 
out of the patty pans, put them on a large dish, 
and grate sugar over their tops. All tarts aro 
best the day they are baked; but they should 
never bo sent to tho table warm. 
To Hake Shad. —Empty and wasli the fish 
with ciu-o, hut do not open it more than neces¬ 
sary, and keep on the head and fins. Fill tho 
insido with a stuiliug made of bread-crumbs, 
suit pork, an onion, sage, thyme, parsley, and 
pepper and salt; chop all together fine, fill and 
sew np the shad, and rub the fish over w ith the 
yelk of an egg and a little of the stuttiing. Place 
it in a dripping-pan with three or four slices of 
the pork over it and the roes at tho side; bake 
one hour iu a quick oven. If pork is objection¬ 
able, use butter instead. 
Shad Maitre <THotel. —Butter a pan and lay 
tho shad iu it -after it has been carefully cleaned 
—with an onion sliced, a bay leaf, five cloves, 
the juice of half a lemon, a spoonful of vinegar, 
and two of gravy ; make four or five incisions on 
both sides of the shad, cutting down to the hone, 
cover with buttered paper, and put into a slow 
oven; let it bake half an hour, then take it out, 
remove tho paper, haste thoroughly, and put it 
back: let it remain in the oven altogether about 
an hom-, hasting it frequently with the liquor iu 
the pan ; then tako it out, fill the incisions with 
chopped parsley und butter ; set it where it will 
keep hot while making a sauce of a little butter, 
flour, broth, and lemon-juice, into w hich pour all 
tho liquid from tho pan in which the shad was 
baked ; boil up once aud pour over the fish. 
USEFUL HINTS. 
Worth Remembering .— Stair carpets should 
always have three or four thicknesses of paper 
put under them, at or over the edge of every 
stair, which is the part where they first wear 
out. The strips should be within au inch or two 
as long as the carpet is wide, and about four or 
five inches in breadth. This simple plan, so 
easy of execution, will, we know-, preserve a stair 
carpet half as long again as it would last without 
the strips of paper. 
To Take White Marks from Mahogany .—If a 
white mark has been left on a mahogany table, 
) 
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