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Conmmercial Reporter, The Honolulu A dvertiser A Record of Hawaiian Industries as They Appeared to an Itinerant Journalist in 1923; published in the Columns of the Advertiser. The Advertiser Press Honolulu, Hawaii, U. S. A. 1924 HrD 91w l p H32 to Q)^! >...1 4. t I 4 r-ii ~~"'~P:;,;-, ~~~.:i""~;, ~~~~'"r"l-~-~; ~r,~..~-:~~,. "i I: (;".-... il I:IJ:i II_ "I"";.'Y-': ~:~ '"";'l:"~;l~ —~,;i,I,,:~:t":-~: sa ~r-,r;~"i;,31'~ K,, TABLE OF CONTENTS Page HAW AII.................................................... 74 Eckart's paper mulch...................................... 106 Hilo Iron W orks Co........................................ 104 Honomu Sugar Co.......................................... 8 Olaa Sugar Co............................................. 96 Onomea Sugar Co........................................... 81 Pepeekeo Sugar Co.......................................... 75 W aiakea M ill Co........................................... 91 K A U A I........................................................ 1 A hukini.................................................. 25 Hawaiian Canneries Co..................................... 21 Hawaiian Sugar Co....................................... 28 H -109..................................................... 27 Kauai Electric Co......................................... 18 Kauai Fruit & Land Co..................................... 1 Kauai Rediscovered...................................... 1 Kauai Telephone Co.................................... 19 Kekaha Sugar Co........................................... 4 K ilauea Sugar Co......................................... 9 Koloa Sugar Co.............................. 7 Lihue Plantationi Co........................................ 13 McBryde Sugar Co.................. 11 N awiliwili........................................... 25 Port A llen.................................................. 20 W aimea Sugar Co.......................................... 2 M A U I......................................................... 36 Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co............................ 46 Kahului R. R. Co........................................... 43 Maui Agricultural Co...................*............ 58 Pioneer Mill Co....................,....................... 66 W ailuku Sugar Co.......................................... 36 OA......................................................... 107 Ewa Plantation Co........................................... 107 Honolulu Plantation Co............................ 132 Mechanical Cane Loader....................... 139 Oahu Sugar Co........................................ 124 Waialua Agricultural Co..................................... 143 ~*: itkr;~~I ~i.-s a ~_ ti - -: ~ ---—::~ —1: -Ili:_:~;~~b~I-:r;.r 'i"-;e ~;..;;-d"' ".i-, - - n c-I~*; -~~-. O 1~1 i; ~ PREFACE. The accompanying series of industrial chronicles was written for The Honolulu Advertiser in 1923, appearing in its columns as current "news" concerning Hawaiian enterprises, often taken for granted by the average reader. The purpose of the series has been to acquaint the public with the actualities of each of the properties visited. Few men who are not a part of the industrial organization have more than a hazy notion concerning its working parts; while many industrial units are so large and so complex that employes of different branches of the same concern are ignorant of the nature and scope of one another's activities. The hearty cooperation and support of Raymond S. Coll, my Managing Editor and Chief, smoothed out the difficulties attendant on the excursions I have made to Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai. I have only written about what I have seen, and in every instance have endeavored to thoroughly explore the plantation or enterprise under review. To that extent these news stories are an informative record of conditions as they appeared to an independent observer, who leaves his readers to form their own opinions as to the worth and merits of the different properties and their varying production methods. Not half of the field has been covered. I devoted my attention first to some of the plantations whose stocks and bonds are widely owned, postponing description of units which are closely owned until some future date. Contrary to common opinion, there are only a few privately owned sugar plantations in Hawaii, and none of these either large or important. One such described in these papers, Waimea Sugar Company, Ltd., is smaller than tens of thousands of farms in the Middle West. Public interest in this little plantation lies in its owners having created the plow land, transforming less than three quarter-sections of unproductive salt marsh into perhaps the richest and most profitable "small farm" in the world. The ownership of the other nineteen sugar plantations herein described is divided among more than ten thousand individual stockholders, resident not only in these islands, but in every mainland state and in many foreign countries. Many of these have never visited their property. Others know it only through the changing value of their securities in good years or bad. Then there is that other newspaper audience, the general public, which is entitled to as much accurate information as can be supplied them concerning the nature of the productive enterprises which constitute the industrial backbone of the community. Hawaiian sugar plantations are by no means the largest in the world, but our planters have always prided themselves on their progressive methods. They have set their standards high-in mill, boiling-house, and field. Without stressing records achieved in these lines or branches of the sugar industry, I believe that the inkling briefly given here of their progress in the humanics of industrial producton will prove a revelation to most readers. Living, as I have, in Hawaii for more than twenty years, with at least an opportunity to see for myself, I was unprepared to realize the limits to which the plantations have gone in building American village communities as the foundation of their agriculture. "Gang labor" on distant, isolated plantations, takes on a new definition when families are comfortably housed and surrounded with city comforts-theatres; baseball parks; tennis, basket-ball and volley-ball courts; swimming pools; churches and lodge rooms; billiard and pool rooms; electric lighting; pure water for domestic use; sewers; village hot water systems; macadamized streets; hospitals; kindergartens; playgrounds; and, in addition, free housing, fuel, and medical attendance. There is as high a degree of self-government in some of these plantation villages as in many a city. The amazing thing is that these great employer corporations are thoroughly "sold" to the "welfare idea". They must be right, for in my travels I met laborers and bosses who had not been to town in two years-and, furthermore, did not want to go. I trust that these descriptive chronicles of conditions as they appeared to me will give my readers at least half as much enjoyment as I have had in gathering the news. JARED G. SMITH, Commercial Reporter, The Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu, Hawaii, U. S. A., December 10, 1923. KAUAI Kauai Rediscovered LIHUE, July 26.-Kauai is only eight hours away from Honolulu, and yet it is over 15 years since I made the trip. It is only just across the street and a street no rougher than many a highway on land. I had forgotten how beautiful "The Garden Island" is, and last week's pleasure was enhanced by the discovery of new sights and the rediscovery of old friendly scenes. Kauai is a beautiful island, only 30 miles across its jagged skyline, green to the water's edge, with cloud-capped mountains to the northward, and everywhere trees, running streams, vivid greenery of cultivated crops, chocolate soils and soils the color of iron rust, flowers, and that comfortable sense of solidity and permanency that is attendant on old settled communities. Undoubtedly the mistake I have made is in letting I15 years go by when there are not so many years in life, all told. It has been oppressively hot, but so is Honolulu. Kauai's country roads are mostly tree-bordered. The island has good roads-old residents here claiming that they were the first to build them as a county asset. They are gentlemanly roads, with notices and signs posted everywhere telling exactly where to go and where to take the laterals to the show places, with "bumps" to punish the unwary who do not believe in signs. Statistically there are many, many miles of oiled and asphalt macadam highway bordered on either hand by groves of ironwood, plum, eucalyptus, hau, ohia ai, lauhala, or great stretches of gorgeous bougainvilleas, hibiscus in wonderful variety and colors. One regrets that clocks were ever invented, or that man is the slave of time and must hurry past. First impressions are always interesting. Were I asked to describe Kauai in one sentence after having taken but a single glance-as youngsters are sometimes trained to develop their "bumps" of memory and observation-I would say, "a land of fat acres owned by contented people," there being such an outstanding, comfortable orderliness about everything. Kanai wears an air of solid, lordly comfort, its people having looked to the mountains and taken counsel thereof. Kauai Fruit and Land Company A glance in at the Kauai Fruit and Land Company's pineapple cannery Tuesday as we were passing revealed the storage shed being filled with ripe fruit for the Wednesday run. The plantation has passed the peak of its early harvest and is slowing down, packing only three days a week. This company has two summer harvests, its earlier crop coming mainly from the small fields of the Lawai and Omao homesteads. Its own fields are at a higher elevation and naturally ripen later. The homesteaders' crop is about out of the way, but by the middle of next month when their upper fields ripen the company will have to speed up and pack every day. 2 This year's pack will be about 120,000 cases. Some of the fruit comes in to the mill by train, the rest of it by auto trucks. The pack is shipped by train to Port Allen and thence direct to the coast. The cannery is in a gulch at Lawai, conveniently located on the main road at the center of the homesteads. It is a small plant well equipped and economically operated. Wtai(mea S'uar Company Four hundred acres of cane land, of which 300 is cropped every year does not sound very big, but Waimea Sugar Company is harvesting just that and no more. Its 1923 crop of 2200 tons will be finished by Saturday of next week, Manager Lindsay Faye informed us Tuesday when Eddie Powell, our circulation manager, and myself went into the mill to cool off. Waimea has a bit of flat land hemmed in by two big neighbors, Kekaha and Hawaiian Sugar Company, just half a mile long and a little wider. It lies only a few feet above sea-level. In 1907 when its present owner, H. P. Faye, bought up all of the stock, the plantation was steadily going down hill, its acreage yields were falling off, the mill was decrepit, and the outlook anything but promising. The place has been in cane about 30 years. In 1907 the average yields were down to about 31~ tons, and with only 250 acres of "possible" cane land its future seemed doubtful as the ground water used for irrigation was decidedly brackish. Up to that time all of the irrigation water had been pumped. The fields kept getting saltier each year and it looked as though abandonment was inevitable. The Waimea fields are topped by Kekaha, cutting off expansion mauka. When H. P. Faye obtained control his first step was to obtain water rights which permitted taking water out of the upper reaches of the Waimea stream. This water is first used for fluming some of the Kekaha cane. It is then released for irrigation purposes when it gets down to the level of the Waimea cane fields. Having a limited supply of pure mountain water at his disposal, Mr. Faye started laundering the salt-impregnated Waimea flats to wash the salt out of the soil, at the same time discontinuing pumping the brackish ground water into the irrigation courses. In the 15 years since the irrigation practise was changed yields have been doubled, in part because the salt has been washed out of the soil, and in part because of improved cultural methods and better cane varieties. The manager of Waimea only knows one variety of cane, H-109. Other plantations have other varieties, but Waimea is satisfied with enough, a trait of character which seems rather contagious on Kauai. Lots of people have it in this part of the world. However, the Kauai definition of "enough" is "something a little better." Manager Faye has just harvested a nice, sizable little "garden patche" field 3 on his miniature plantation which turned out 10.3 tons of sugar from 76 tons of cane harvested per acre, or at the ratio of 7.3, while the banner lot of cane harvested this year went 11.5 tons of sugar per acre. This would seem to answer the question whether a small plantation "pays". It does if you know how. Not only has the productive value of the old lands been increased by good husbandry, Faye has added 35 to 40 acres of new cane land along the upper boundary of the Waimea flats through concentrating the storm waters of many small gulches into one and settling the mud from the freshet waters. Cane seed is planted in this soft mud after the storm water crest has passed on, the laborers getting lines that are approximately straight and about the proper distance between, without the bother of plowing, harrowing, furrowing and all the rest of it. Some of these "made" fields have never had a plow in them and the cane keeps on ratooning indefinitely. But growing the cane is only a part of it. I have been told by many sugar experts at one time or another that it is impossible to build a small mill which can be economically operated, or that will do the same class of work as the big mills. As with other generalities, there must be a flaw in the reasoning because Waimea mill has ranked second among all the sugar factories in Hawaii in milling records and economical production. A good deal of its reputation comes from the mutual engineering conspiracies that have been going on for the last 15 years between Chief Engineer P. E. A. Kruse and the owner, H. P. Faye. There are evidences on every hand, so plain that one does not have to be a Sherlock Holmes to discover how it happened. A little change here, an improvement there, old parts put to new uses, until in time one of the least efficient sugar mills in all Hawaii became one of the best. In 1907 Waimea mill was a three-roller affair about in keeping with the run-down fields from which it got its crops. It was transformed in due time into a short-bodied 12-roller mill with Krajewsky crusher. A defective housing has forced cutting down the load so that in these last days of the harvest the mill is doing around 95, but last year and for several campaigns extraction has averaged around 98. In 1918 and 1919 extraction was around 99. A new bottom roller in the first mill, a new 721/2-inch calandria to replace the present seven-ton, 120-bag pan, new Grosse engines, quadruple effect and two more centrifugals for the low grades are recent improvements. With its high extraction records, the mill has averaged 92 to 93 juice purity and very low water content in the bagasse. One reason for the excellent quality of its work is that the theoretical capacity is about three times its normal load. The mill could probably handle a 7000-ton crop. Replying to a question as to whether it would not be better to harvest the entire crop in a shorter period, using the mill to full capacity at the time when the cane is ripest, Manager Faye said this has been considered, but with labor conditions as they are it is out of the question. Plantation and factory have been working along with a total force of 90 men. The place is 4 so small that running it is practically a family affair. Everybody on the property knows what to do next, with field and mill hands interchangeable. If the harvest system were to be changed it would mean doubling up the harvest gangs, which would mean more camps and a larger outlay in overhead and fixed charges for two months, on which there would be 10 months' depreciation because of non-use the balance of the year. Engineer Kruse has made some interesting improvements which ought to appeal to millmen elsewhere. There is his automatic control of the volume of maceration water through an ingenious device which increases or decreases the flow as the thickness of the blanket varies. More striking is a "mule," so-called because of its hybrid ancestry, which automatically slows or speeds up the feed belt on the cane carrier and forestalls the racing strain on the crusher and mill due to vacancies on the carrier. It is made of parts of four engines, steam and gasoline. Instead of an electro-magnet to take out the bolts, chain links, car couplings and sections of portable track which always get into the cane somehow, Waimea mill has a "watcher," one of the "old-time" Japanese of whom there are now all too few left in Hawaii. He is blessed with good hearing and an uncanny intuition as to what bit of loose hardware is floating around in the cane as it rides on the carrier. Waimea hasn't the acreage or the gross tonnage, but as its water supply increases and the land improves under modern tillage methods its output is going to be bigger. Another 10 years of the same intelligent and constructive management and we may expect its yields to average from 10 tons up, a competitor in acre tonnage of any plantation in Hawaii, bar none. Kekaha Sugar (Conpany KEKAHA, July 27-"I think all cane fields can be ratooned indefinitely," H. P. Faye, veteran manager of Kekaha Sugar Company, Kauai, told me in summing up his experience of over forty years in practical cane cultivation in Hawaii. He said he thought that neither climate, elevation, soils nor fertilizers are limiting factors per se, if only the man who is growing the crop knows his varieties and uses the understanding knowledge of his own experience in getting results. Faye has kept tab on practical cane production throughout Hawaii as perhaps few others, irrespective of how long they have been in the game or how closely they have studied their factors of production. His analyses of what other plantations are doing would be interesting reading, but the ethics of newspaperdom forbids mention of his comparisons and conclusions. Stockholders in plantations accounted "gold mines" on each of the islands would be interested in knowing that Manager Faye believes that even the best of them are missing chances. That few chances are being missed at Kekaha is widely admitted, this being the banner sugar producing unit of all Hawaii if not of the whole 5 sugar world. Men say that with these lands and abundant water the veriest dub and amateur could not miss it. However, I have seen failures in many a venture which looked as though it could not fail, and I am inclined to the belief that there is much of truth in Faye's assertion that even the best situated producers have not even touched the limits of their production capacity. "They trust too much to their neighbors' experience and follow cultivation practices because others do, not because these are best in their own locality," is the gist of his conclusions. I am aching to specify certain plantations that he mentioned as capable of turning out another thousand, three thousand or five thousand tons per crop without increase of acreage, but will have to cherish the ache. The man-onthe-street might misinterpret and accuse me of indulging in personalities. Manager Faye's ace, right bower and joker among cane varieties, are D-1135, Badila and Lahaina-Badila for the newly converted salt marshes, P-1135 for the uplands, and the genuine old Lahaina cane for the main body of the plantation. With a total of about 4300 acres in crop, Kekaha is harvesting over 70 per cent of its sugar from Lahaina cane-a soft answer to turn the wrath of other experts who claim that this old standby has "run its course" and is on the down grade as a producing variety. There is one very old field on the plantation, planted in Lahaina 35 years ago, which cut 61 tons of cane per acre this last crop. A field of Lahaina planted in 1891 has just turned out 9.7 tons of sugar from 83 tons of cane per acre, other fields nearly as old ranging from 56 to 75 tons of cane per acre. It is true that these fields are a part of the old filled-in lagoon but little above sea level, but there are other rich and likely fields throughout Iawaii which ought to be just as good or better. Were there no such thing as skillful agriculture these Kekaha lands might be growing swamp grasses and sedges. Assuredly, there is something in "knowing how"-and then doing it. That continuous cropping of the lower Kekaha cane fields is not altogether a matter of "luck" is indicated by Manager Faye's success in ratooning D-1135 on the upland fields and harvesting a crop every thirteen months. One "plant" crop, then "short" ratoons followed by "long" ratoons, after which the fields are fallowed or replanted immediately, has come to be the rule throughout these Islands. Manager Faye affirms that there is no fundamental principle of agricultural practice underlying this routine, and that in sticking close to the "rule" many plantations are losing ground where they ought to be gaining it. The time factor enters in. A cane plantation must be visualized as a complex enterprise extending over a period of years. The mathematical 12-month period which we call "a year" is only a slice cut off the cake, just a part of the confection which has taken 20 years, perhaps, in the baking. Yet we compare slice with slice, and year with year, with an air of finality, losing sight of the effect that today's work is going to have on results 10 years ahead. 6 One thing I noticed in my brief visit to Kekaha was that the cane fields are of an entirely different shade of green from any other plantation in Hawaii. Looking down from the Waimea ridges, or viewed from the sea, the cane fields have a deep, blue-green tinge of color. This, I suspect, is a result of the proper use of Norwegian lime-nitrogen in lieu of ammonium sulphate and nitrate of soda. Considerable water development is under way. The company is digging some miles of tunnels and building great concrete-lined ditches which will tap the waters of the Waimea river at the 3500-foot level. This water system will bring a considerable acreage of unused, virgin uplands into cultivation without interfering with the stream-flow taken at lower levels. New hydro-electric development is contemplated as a part of the project, the details of which have not yet been given out. The company has just installed a six-cylinder 300 h. p. Fairbanks-Morse semi-deisel auxiliary engine and generator near the mill. This will help out the present hydro-electric station in pumping water from the lowland irrigation and drainage ditches to the (00-foot lexvel where new fields are being planted. Kekaha mill improvements have already been described. A great array of new equipment is being assembled to be installed during the coming offseason, to modernize the factory and increase its capacity. The existing nineroller mill is by no means inefficient, having averaged from 96 to 97.2 extraction this season. However, 1924 is going to show new records in all departments of the sugar manufacturing process, keeping pace with the steady advance in field production. In his thirty-odd years at Kekaha, Manager Faye has "made" nearly 600 acres of new cane land besides reclaiming a large area of salt marsh land. The "new" land is made by building dykes at the mouths of the dry gulches back of the plantation which divert the muddy storm waters from their natural outlet seaward. Mud, boulders and debris washed down from the mountains are deposited in deltas below these artificial dykes so that every year sees at least a few acres of rich alluvial added to the cane area. Immediately the waters subside, planting gangs attack the "new" fields, shoving the "seed" into the soft mud in regular rows. The minute the new lands are firm enough, mule-cultivators are sent into the fields to keep down the tremendous weed growth which would otherwise smother the young cane. Furrowing for irrigation follows some time afterwards. Over at the Mana end of the plantation other dykes, dams, weirs and drainage ditches are steadily pushing back the encroaching tidal estuaries. As dry fields emerge from the salt marshes they are put through a "rinsing' process to eliminate the salt accumulation as rapidly as surplus storm water can be poured over them. Badila cane, which is least affected by brackish waters, is used as a rejuvenator on these reclaimed marshes, to be followed later by H-109, or perhaps new Lahaina seedlings. A number of very promising new strains of this old variety are under observation at Kekaha. Faye pins his faith to "Lahaina" 7 and does not admit that there is anything wrong with it, whatever its reputation elsewhere. What of the future of Kehaka plantation? There is no other sugar property like it in these islands today, and it does not call for the wisdom of a seer to prophesy that what has thus far been accomplished in the development of this plantation is but the beginning. I look for great increase in. production capacity to come out of Kekaha during the next 35 years. - KVoloa Sugar Com)pany LIHUE, KAAI, July 27.-Koloa Sugar Co(mpany is the oldest plantation in Hawaii, having been the site of the first venture in commercial sugar production 90 years ago, in 1833. Remnants of the upright stone rollers through which the cane was fed one stick at a time, after the fashion still in use in China, rest under the huge banyan tree in front of the residence of Manager John T. Moir, Jr. The first planters were Chinese, and drawings and a description of the old mill were published on The Advertiser's "Sugar page" nine years ago. Its counterpart may be seen in operation today in many a locality in southern Asian sugar lands where the natives boil "ghur" and low grade muscovados. "Koloa," signifying long cane, was descriptive of a locality which the old Hlawaiians considered highly favorable to the cultivation of the native varieties. It is interesting to know that a number of these old native sugar cane varieties, consigned to oblivion by the earlier commercial planters as soon as they could import seed of foreign strains, have "come back" and are now being propagated as an important source of the main sugar supply on many of the plantations. Besides being the oldest plantation, Koloa has the second largest artificial reservoir in the Hawaiian Islands. It is an artificial lake 400 acres in area with an average depth of over 24 feet when full. It was filled up to the spillway last January and at the end of July held 1,200,000,000 gallons, just half its maximum capacity. It is 480 feet above sea level. Pat McLean, manager at Koloa twenty years ago, was the man who conceived the idea of building the long dam and then built it, although it was without water for nearly eighteen months afterwards. Then the seasons changed, rains again swept the watersheds draining into the basin, and this plantation was transformed from a periodically profitable one into one of the uniform dividend-earning producers. Moir is the youngest plantation manager in the Territory. He was transferred from Maui last year after several years of practical experience supplementary to university and experiment station training. I noted that he has surrounded himself with a corps of other youngsters of like antecedents and training. 8 The mill has been brought up to balance within the last three years. There are no unusual features in its make-up. It has a twelve-roller train headed by a Krajewsky crusher. The general reforestation policy established under previous managers is being carried out so that in time the entire western slope of the dry mountain range bounding the plantation on the east will be tree clad. This great, bare basalt ridge ending in the prominent peak, Hauopu, or "Hoary Head," the southernmost cape on Kauai, is the source of the storm waters impounded in the big McLean reservoir. A bay of land at Hauopu's western foot which has been planted in cane almost continuously since the plantation was started bears the reputation of being the boggiest, swampiest cane field in Hawaii. It makes sugar and trouble every year but is gradually being brought under control by a system of open drainage ditches. As Koloa's fields lie mostly below the reservoir the big water problem is to get the water to the land. Instead of deep, red oxidized, dense, waterholding soils, the fields resemble the kula formation of Kau, the Konas and the Kula district of East Maui. They are hot, level, rocky and porous, tremendously rich if well watered, but expensive to work and hard to irrigate. That has been Koloa's chief difficulty through all these years-getting the water where it is needed. The plantation has had a varied history under many changes in management and is by no means the easiest property to operate as a profit. There are a number of fields where the use of plows is as impossible as in Kona, all operations depending on hand labor. Lack of continuity in plantation policies has been a drawback in the handling of this property. To obviate this the last preceding manager, Caleb Burns, now at the head of Pioneer Mill Company, Maui, did some extremely valuable historical work and laid out a number of major projects which were formally adopted by the directors as the Koloa plantation policy, to be followed irrespective of the personnel of management. This "project plan" is now the major guide to the constructive improvement of the plantation over a series of coming sugar years. It carries into the fields the principles elucidated by the late Alonzo Gartley in his general methods of mill improvement, the theory back of it being to bring the plantation into balance, co-ordinating all units of field production, eliminating chance and guess work, and making the production and manufacturing divisions of sugar production complemientary to each other. Manager Moir considers thris "project plan" formulated by Burns a very important factor in the plantation continuity. He is following it in his constructive work. For example, the chief factor affecting Koloa's periodic water shortage pertains to getting the water where it is needed, rather than increasing the original supply. Losses by seepage from the main ditches and laterals have been excessive, in effect perpetually destroying the advantage the possession of a two-and-ahalf billion gallon storage reservoir ought to have given the plantation. The first thing to do then, was to remedy this by lining the main delivery ditches. 9 Already during the short period Moir has been ill charge of the property, he has concreted 3,800 feet of the big ditch which is the main artery leading out from the reservoir and the daily flow of 60,000,000 gallons gets that much nearer the fields without appreciable seepage losses. A field lateral through a rocky bit of "lantana land" ldown below the mill with the bad record of ]eaking two-thirds of its flow in a half-mile stretch, has also been concreted. Fully lining these supply ditches will take several years but is very much worth while, the little which has already been finished having appreciably increased the volume of irrigation water delivered at the cane rows. In the fields, 11-1309 cane is being spread as rapidly as seed is available for pl]anting the lower lands. The upland fields are planted with Yellow Tip, Yellow Caledonia and D-113). Caledonia stool selection experiments are in progress, this variety having done well at upper levels too high for irrigation. If strains having better ratooning qualities can be selected alnd propagated there is no reason for discarding it in the Koloa-McBryde district, whatever its history elsewhere. D-1135 is a good upland cane and would be b)etter if it were not such anl erect variety. It is slow in closing in. This encourages weed growth and adds to cultivation costs. One factor in favor of Yellow Tip, which is being rapidly spread on the Kauai uplands, is the leafiness of the young cane. It closes in better than either Caledonia or 1)-113), therelby cutting down the cost of cultivation. Moir is carrying on a lot of seedling and bud selection work in full cooperation with the experiment station, and a number of fertilizer tests. Whatever gains are made in getting canes which give more uniform returns on the unirrigated uplands is going to be of great b)enefit to the homesteaders and small planters as well as to the plantation. Eric Knudsen's little unirrigated plantation which is sandwiched in between Koloa and (Grove Farm, its crop being ground by Koloa mill, is being rapidly worked over into Badila cane. Lihue and (rove Farm favor Yellow Tip. Many of the Omao-Kalaheo homesteaders still swear by Yellow Caledonia. Moir likes D-1135. All this indicates that there is still room for material improvement in the cultivation of unirrigated cane on Kauai. It is. an interesting problem. Kilauca Sugar Company KILAITEA, KAUAI, August 1.-Kilauea Sugar Company, the northernmost sugar plantation in Hawaii, is making steady progress under the able management of David P. Larsen. lie was formerly in charge of the field experiments of the HI. S. P. A. experiment station and( transferred to practical cane growing when the directors of Kilauea made him an attractive offer. Nevertheless, "Dave" Larsen has met many obstacles in putting theory into practice. 10 Kilauea's cane soils are not too fertile, much too weedy and shallow, too wet in winter and too dry in summer. The problem of just how to go about the rejuvenation of this "difficult" elder among Hawaiian producers has therefore not been easy of solution. Manager Larsen makes no secret of having failed in some of his plans for rapid improvement. However, a good many of the long-cultivated, worn-out fields have commenced to put more sugar in the bags, and that is the test of scientific agriculture. A turn has come in the affairs of this plantation. One advance made in 1923 has been the throwing out of every acre of Yellow Caledonia. This variety has suddenly given out on many Kauai plantations, exactly why, no one knows. The fact remains that it has passed its usefulness and must be replaced if averages are to be maintained. Kilauea plantation was fortunate in having plenty of seed cane of other varieties. Manager Larsen sold all his surplus seed of the Yellow Tip variety to his neighbors and with what he had and was able to buy, he has enough seed of 11-109 to plant 1000 acres of low lying land. The planting of 1000 acres with this thirsty variety has been made possible by the recent completion of the Kalihi-wai systen which delivers from 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 gallons of mountain water per day. This water is delivered at the 460-foot level through an 1100-foot syphon across the Kalihi stream bed. Previously, the miinimum water supply from all sources had dwindled 2,000,000 gallons per day during the dry summer months. As the plantation has 2,300 acres of cane land, this big new supply is going to be sufficient to carry all lands at the optimum duty of irrigation at all times. This will mean larger annual crops beginning in 1925 and continuing thereafter. To supplement the Kalihi-wai stream flow and insure uniform supply, Manlager Larsen is planning throwing a dam across one of the mountain valleys, creating a 300,000,000-gallon reservoir which will be filled by storm waters which now run to waste. In time other lands will be brought into cane and the annual output further increased. However, there are "ifs alnd ands" to be overcome. It is something to look forward to if stockholders and ldirectors arrange for financing these further extensions. At the endl of this season there will not be a stick of Yellow Caledonia left on Kilauea plantation; the lower fields will all be in H-109, the middle levels in Yellow Tip, and all the upper fieds in Badila. The crop of 1923 is very small because a great deal of cane which night have gone through the rollers has been cut for seed. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Manager Larsen is not inclined to say very much about what he is going to do, but his neighbors rather expect to see Kilauea not only "come back" but go a long way ahead of any past performance. The average has been about three and a half tons per acre. These new varieties may double the yields. Larsen does not say so, or claim that they will, but plantation men knew what to expect in the way of sugar yields from each of these three varieties under the very best methods of field practice. 11 McBryde Sugar Company KAUAI, Aug. 2.-McBryde Sugar (on01pany fields and mill are in first clasf physical condition; the work is up to date, the fields clean, and on every hand one sees evidences of confidence on the part of the entire working staff that this plantation has at last turned the corner and is well on the way to join ranks of steady dividend earners. It has been a long pull, but the top of the hill and the end of its difficulties are in sight. Insufficiency of water supply has always been the chief obstacle. The cane lands lie well, the soil is deep and rich, and the property is well located, convenient to shipping facilities. Manager Frank A. Alexander is away on a vacation trip to the coast, but other plantation managers had told me that he is a go)od farmer and organizer, so I was prepared in a Imeasure for confirmation of their good opinion of what is being done. I was not disa1ppointed. There is an air of business on the part of the entire organization Nwhich refutes the old saying that "while the cat is away the mice will play." The "mice" are doing their darndest to keep the property up to the scratch. During the manager's absence, head bookkeeper William B. Miller has general supervision, with chief engineer Robert B. Kay in charge of mill and machinery, and Head Overseer H. J. Eby responsille for the fields. The mill is the largest in the islands, having 84-inch rollers, and is unlike most of the others in being of the Cuban type. The train consists of crusher, shredder and 9-roller mill, and cane capacity is very large. All units are motor or steam turbine driven. Recent improvements comprise raising the roof eight feet in order to extend] the electric overhead crane the full length of the house, to give better xentilation and improve lighting conditions. The machine shops have been rearranged so as to entrain work to better advantage, and an electric welder has been installed. The company has its own Ihydro-electric plant, which gives all the power required to operate each of the units throughout mill, machine shops and factory. Engineer Kay is rather proud of his newly completed ice plant with triple refrigeration compartments. This plant is large enough to provide all of the ice used locally, while the modern cold-storage compartments are filled with fresh meats, dairy products, fruit and other perishables for store and camp supply. Western Kauai is a pretty warm locality and plantation employee highly appreciate the new service. With these exceptions there is nothing new planned or in progress, aside from the thorough routine overhauling of all mill and factory equipment preparatory to next season's grinding. McBryde has a good mill which is in such con(lition that it will last a long time, although it has been in place over twenty years. The fields are being worked over as rapidly as possible into new cane varieties. This year's planting program comprises 1800 acres, mainly H-109. and when completed one-half of the cane area. approximately 3000 acres, will be in this variety. A new seedling, "'l-456(," which looks like Yellow Caledonia but has better ratooning qualities, is being extended as rapidly as possible. 12 There is still quite a good deal of Yellow Caledonia to be harvested during the next two seasons, but 1926 will see very little of this variety left on the McBryde fields. At the end of July there was only one field still to be plowed for the new plant crop. The plantation has large experimental plots where new seedlings and bud selection progenies are being grown under field conditions. Innovations in field practices are the substitution of "Cletrack" and small "Ilolt" tractors for mules on the cultivators. Eby said that the field cultivation is being handled speedier and cheaper, with far less breakage and damage to the cane stools than where mules are relied upon. There is also a saving in man labor, the customary Kauaian plantation practice b1eing one plowman and two drivers for each tandem mule team. Another innovation is the use of concrete slab water gates in the field ditches in lieu of the usual wooden weir. This is a patented invention of Eby's. Where tried out last year it cut down field production costs 30 cents per ton of cane through the saving of lumber and labor, not counting in the greater economy in the distribution of water. Two hundred acres are being outfitted with the "Eby water-gate" this year, and they will be installed to cover another 1000 to 1200 acres next year. A factory has been started by the plantation where the concrete water-gates are being poured in cleverly devised forms. The planters have been working with H —109 cane long enough to know that this variety must have plenty to eat and drink, if results are to be satisfactory. Eckart's great seedling, his gift to the Hawaiian sugar planters while he was director of the experiment station, has made world records in sugar production when planted in favorable locations, heavily "doped" with nitrogen, and then given all the water it wants to drink. It might seem like foolishness, therefore, to plant 3000 acres of 11-109 on a plantation situated as is McBryde as to its present inadequate water supply. However, plans are afoot to give this property all the water it needs even if the whole 6000 acres were to be planted in 11-109. They have recently purchased the old McBryde homestead of 170-odd acres which has nearly that amount of class A pineapple land, and as an inalienable appanage water rights in both the Hanapepe and Hanalei streams. Engineers are at work along the upper reaches of these mountain streams and in due time an additional new supply of irrigation water will be poured onto the McBryde cane fields. Also, a dam is to be built across the mouth of a very fine natural reservoir site in the upper Wahiawa valley, to impound storm and flood waters. The plantation now has 31 reservoirs, little and big, with an aggregate storage capacity of one billion gallons. The new Wahiawa reservoir and other smaller ones which are a part of the project will double the storage capacity. If the engineers decide that it is feasible, another six to ten years may see the Wainiha waters with their daily flow of 60,000,000 gallons brought through or around the mountain for delivery direct to the McBryde cane 13 fields. There is a big "if" about this proposal, but I heard it being talked all over the island. So many "impossible" developments have been carried through on Kauai that there is no use of saying this will never happen. Kauai's lone mountain, Waialeale, is renowned as the wettest spot on earth with its measured annual rainfall of 600 inches. The run-off pours down from its swamps above the clouds in every direction, much of it running into the sea unused. The term, "water development," therefore, has a different meaning oni Kauai than in lmost lands, for it simply means catching and holding tremendous floods of pure rain water. There is water there, floods of it! I was told that a part of the McBryde water program is the doubling up of the Wainiha hydro-electric power plant, competent hydraulic engineers having figured that until they get ready to switch the stream itself over to the leeward side of the island the plantation might just as well have more current to operate its pumps in the bottom of Hanapepe canyon. More "juice" at Wainiha will mean more water pumped onto the cane fields. Considering all of these plans and possibilities for getting more water, the project of entirely rejuvenating McBryde plantation with such "thirsty" canes as H-109 and 11-456 does not look so altogether foolish. When given enough water these seedling canes have no limit in their sugar producing capacity-witness the 1)-tons-per-acre yields of Ewa and Waipioand neither Renton of Ewa nor Agee of the experiment station admit that they have reached the limit. I expect to see record production come out of McBryde, irrespective of its none too rosy history. The land is there; they have the cane varieties; and they are planning to get the water. Time, a little more patience, probably a few millions more of capital, and this great fee-simple property will come into its own. That factor of the company being the owner of its best cane lands is a decided advantage. Lihue Plantation Company Lihue plantation, always a productive, profit-making property, has undergone a transformation under the efficient and progressive management of R. D. Moler, and is now entering the second stage of its development. It has been a twenty thousand ton plantation. Plans are afoot to gradually increase production until thirty thousand tons is the "nominal" crop. Lihue is a "show" plantation, well cultivated, orderly. Green lawns surround its mill; flowers and well-kept gardens ornament its labor camps. A business-like tone pervades throughout. Work goes with a snap that shows perfect organization and confidence. Outstanding is that Kauaian trait to do things just a little better, each year, than the other fellow, for there is rivalry here as elsewhere in Hawaii. All Kauai is inclined to boast a little bit, and all Kauai holds proprietary interest and pride in Lihue's mill. I have had taxi drivers tell me that "our" 14 machine shop is going to make Kauai independent of the Inter-Island, and of the big Honolulu foundries and machine shops. Chief Engineer Olaf R. Olsen has been given free hand to show what he can do-and he's done well. The machine shop and mill occupy either end of a 300-foot wing of the factory with tracks for a 15-ton traveling crane running the full length of the building. During the past campaign a worn roller was taken out of the train, transferred to the lathe in the machine shop, a new roller shipped, carried back to the train, lowered in place and re-set, with a stoppage of only thirty minutes. The shop is 56 by 126 feet. It is fully equipped with modern electric motor-driven, iron-working tools, including lathes, planers, a rotary drill to bore holes at any angle, power forges, drop hammers-in. a word, everything needed to make immediate repairs. The gear-cutter can handle anything from 2 inches to 27 inches; there are electric welders, press drills, tooling machinery for iron, steel or brass-everything except a foundry-and a small furnace is to be added to the equipment sometime within the next twelve months. It is no wonder that Kauai talks about "our" machine shop at Lihue. It las repaired mill rollers for almost every plantation on the island, thereby cutting down the time when these mills would otherwise have had to stop grinding while essential parts were shipped to Honolulu for repairs. The factory has an ideal roominess and simplicity. The building is big and roomy, clean and well lighted; the machinery well placed, with a minimum of steam lines and piping. The factory is not working, but the interior arrangement gives the idea that it is a cool mill and a good place to work. Kauai is fortunate in having an abundance of electric power. Lihue mill is electrified throughout except where the cookery of steam and hot water are needed in sugar-making. The mill men's particular "pet"-they kept it for the last after knocking us dead with their other improvements-is a 750 -kilowatt steam turbine G. E. generator, housed outside in its own quarters, to supply auxiliary power during the grinding season. This is supplementary to two 250-kilowatt hydro-electric generators at the power plant at the head of the main ditch, in the mountains, fifteen miles away. A noteworthy feature of the factory is the arrangement whereby there is the greatest economy of space in the emplacement of units. There is continuity and sequence, from mill-yard to shipping room. A hill has been graded down so that 300 loaded cars can be accumulated on the sidings during the night to start the day's run. An endless cable takes empty cars out of the mill siding as loaded cars run in by gravity. Inside the factory, bridge girders on widely spaced steel columns support the pans and evaporators, giving light, air and safety below. The crusher engine was installed with the shredder, four years ago; Colonial Sugar Company type clarifiers in 1919; two new evaporators two years ago; a new 40-ton calandria; three new boilers in 1919, and two in 1920; and last year the lowgrade crystallizers were brought up to balance. There are 28 of these, and a 15 battery of 40-inch centrifugals for the No. 1 sugar. The capacity of the mill is now 200 tons per day, although the average daily run is about 160 tons. Engineer Olsen's patented carrier is a feature of the sugar room. When the sewing machine sews up the bag under the automatic weigher, the bag tips over on to a chain elevator chute and is carried up to the top of the sugar room, where the bags are dropped into mobile chutes delivering them into the cars. There is track room for eight 20-ton cars under the loader, or an average day's output. All of this end of the factory is operated by machinery, and men do no more than direct the course of operation. The sugar bags are not lifted or carried or thrown. They are stacked in place in the cars by electric machinery. Chemist Hansen has a fine concrete laboratory out in the flower garden a:way from the factory with its heat, steam and vibration. lie does not have to catch his weights "oi the fly". Another outbuilding, 50 by 120 feet, is the stockroom, through which every item of supplies used on the plantation passes. All goods are checked in and requisitioned out and the records are up to date. This stock room explains why there are no scrap heaps on view from one end of the plantation to the other. It is the heart through which the entire bloodstream of plantation "supplies" is constantly flowing, an ideal distribution and control system and center which saves many dollars to the company by avoiding duplication. When the eight cars in the sugar room are loaded an engine runs the train down to the landing at Ahukini, where another almost automatic electric carrier system unloads the cars, and stacks tlhe sugar in the comnmodious termninal warehouse. Manager Moler has relocated the main line of the Ahukini Railway and Terminal Company, eliminating eleven curves and making the grades uniform. It was built originally on contours and was as twisty as a snake. There are only two curves between landing and mill now, with cuts and fills eliminating tile grades. At the landing electric carrier chutes load direct into a vessel, working all hatches at the same time. The Kilauea takes her full cargo in a few hours. The story of fields, camps, alnd all of the out-of-doors department is a longer story which must be left for another installment. Lihue is the largest windward plantation in Hawaii, and a fit unit for comparison, although all comlparisons are dangerous in this land where rivalry is so keen. It will be best to tell what I saw and let my readers do their own comparing. Off-hand, I would call Lihue Kauai's electric plantation, with the cane producing division fully up to the high standards set by factory and mill. Lihue is the largest windward sugar plantation in these islands. The "lay" of its lands resembles that of the Wainaku-Hakalau group of sugar )roperties adjoining Hilo except that the Lihue lands are at lower elevation and more level. Further differences are its huge areas of deep, rich, iron-rust soils aid its abundant supply of water for irrigation. As I said when speaking of its mill, Lihue is a "show" plantation, its fields:aid fence corners as spick and span las if Manager Robert D. Moler had been 16 polishing it up to enter in a beauty contest. To really appreciate the property one must see it. As for describing it, that is a difficult matter. It is an old plantation that has been well over sixty years in the making and it is hard to find a beginning point in discussing excellence. Perhaps it would be easiest to begin by saying that Manager Moler graduated to the command of Lihue through a twenty-year course of practical training on other plantations throughout the group, his last previous position havingi been that of head overseer at McBryde. IIe is from Maryland originally. His chief obsessions appear to be HI-109 cane for his irrigated lowlands; putting his shallower upland fields through a pigeon-pea-fallowing rotation; and putting into effect a friendly co-operative spirit which has created a high working morale in the entire plantation organization. Starting with 18 acres of plant 11-109 cane in 1918 the plantation now has over 1500 acres of crop in this variety. This year much cane that might have been ground at the mill was used for seed. Yellow Caledonia, which was formerly considered the main standby, yields around seven and a half tons maximum for plant and around five tons of sugar per acre for the ratoons. A field of 173 acres of H-109 harvested this year averaged 10 tons; another 103-acre IHanamaulu field made 11.25 tons; with very little variation between plant and ratoon crops on suitable lands provided there is enough water to give this thirsty variety all it wants to drink. One field has been cut back for seed six times. This H1-109 variety is one of the best ratooners ever grown in Hawaii, fully as good or better than Lahaina at its best. This ruling difference of from three to five tons average acre sugar returns in favor of Eckhart's "HI-109" is sufficient reason for sacrificing cane which might have put more sugar in the bags this year in order that from and after 1925 the main harvest will be of this variety It is also explanatory of why Lihue is spending large sums for bringing more mountain water from the upper lIanalei basin when the plantation is already fairly well provided with irrigation water. The experiment station has figured that it takes one million gallons of water to produce one ton of sugar, whether it comes from the clouds or is poured on to the land through artificial irrigation systems. This "Il0-ton cane," H-109, therefore puts the burden on its worshippers of providing 10,000,000 gallons of water per acre during its eighteen to twentyfour-month growing period-which is some contract. The statistically inclined can take pencil and pad and do some figuring on the volume of water required to produce Hawaii's yearly sugar crop. Yellow Caledonia has "run out" faster at Lihue than in most other districts. Hence it is being "thrown out" as quickly as it can be replaced. Another two years will see the last acre of this variety harvested, if the work goes according to plan. 17 On the uplands it is being replaced with 11-456 and Yellow Tip. A fine 40-acre field of the latter variety is being used for seed. Acres and acres of pigeon peas cover the uplands between cane fields, to be pastured and then plowed under to enrich the soil. A 700-acre field of Yellow Tip plant cane looks as green as a corn field after its preliminary course of fallowing and green manures. Deep plowing is practiced everywhere. The manager believes in getting his lands good and ready before planting his crops-a policy reflected in low tonnage costs and big yields. These level uplands above the Wailua river were planted flat by machinery of the types originated by Larsen at Kilauea. Where walter is available for irrigation the courses are laid out after the cane is up. Down on the irrigated lands a new planting machine which furrows, drops the seed and covers it is in use, the joint invention of Manager Moler and Chief Engineer Olaf R. Olsen. A description of what it is like cannot be published until the patents are out, because if this information were printed it would jeopardize the inventors' rights in getting patents covering foreign countries. This can be said, however, that the invention promises to be one of the most important advances yet made in the use of agricultural machinery on irrigated sugar plantations. It is a labor- and time-saver, and makes a firstclass machine job out of what has always been a slow, costly and arduous operation. There are other special features about the plantation-its thousand acres of bearing woodland which supplies all of the firewood used in the camps; handsome bungalow cottages for foremen and technical staff, surrounded by well-kept lawns and flower gardens-such houses as one sees in Manoa and Kaimuki; and clean, 3-, 4- and 5-room cottages in the labor camps, painted inside and out and ceiled; electric lights, piped water in each house, built-in kitchens, macadamized streets laid out through the camp. Each cottage has its garden patch. An automatic flushing sewer system emptying into septic tanks; shower baths; community wash houses, and a thorough system of daily camp inspection, are items which insure comfortable and sanitary housing conditions. A new camp near Lihue village already has 26 cottages built, 10 new ones building, and 60 more to come. I visited the plantation hospital, where Dr. Jay M. Kuhns holds sway over as well equipped an institution of its kind as there is in Hawaii. It has all of the modern equipment for handling surgical, medical and maternity cases — sun parlor and dark room, an x-ray machine, electric baker, operating theater, dietary kitchens, receiving station for emergency cases, and isolated contagious ward. An abundance of boiling water is on tap from a battery of solar heaters. Mrs. McGregor, head nurse, who showed me through the hospital in the absence of Dr. Kuhns, took special pride in the recently completed women's 18 ward. This is a memorial to the late W. C. Parke, erected from a substantial bequest provided in his will. The last plantation unit which I visited was the dairy, where 34 registered Ayrshire cows were being milked by machinery. The plantation delivers milk to all of its plantation camps, besides having recently extended its service to Kealia, Ahukini and Nawiliwili. The outstanding feature of this dairy is that after supplying milk to plantation employes at charges which in many cases are purely nominal, it paid all expenses and earned a profit on investment last year. Working only with pure bred, registered cattle, the sales of pedigreed heifers, steers and veal has "paid the freight" and reimbursed the plantation for its losses on milk. The plant is on the beach adjoining the United States army's aero-landing field, just inside the sand dunes. Pastures and cattle pens are dry, whatever the weather, the land being pure sand covered with manienie turf. The herd has the run of the nearby fallowing cane fields and gets chaffed alfalfa and elephant grass roughage with their daily feed of concentrates at milking time. Adjoining the milking shed with its concrete floor is the cooling house with ice machine and bottling outfit. The dairy is producing about 240 quarts per day. Kauai Electric CoUopan y LIHUE, KAUAI, July 31.-The Garden Island is well lighted from end to end although there is only one public utility light and power corporation, the Kauai Electric Company, Ltd., which distributes hydro-electric current generated at Wainiha to customers from Waimea to McBryde. Its generators, installed 17 years ago, are of the 25-cycle type, a circumstance which operates against the extension of its service to other districts where hydro-, steam- and oil-driven units are all of the more modern 60-cycle type which has become standard throughout the electrical world. Every plantation has its own electric power and light plant and supplies current to customers within its own bailiwick but is not looking for outside business. Lihue, the county seat, with all the makings of a good sized country town, depends on the plantation for its lighting, whereas customers at Waimea, the second largest settlement on the island, may carry their troubles to the territorial public utility commission for adjustment. With the superabundance of cheap hydro-generated current which characterizes the island I could hear of no effort being made to utilize surplus power through small manufacturing plants. It looks as though there were opportunity for developing an island-wide electric utility service. For example, when the United States engineers started work on the Nawiliwili breakwater, none of the plantations would extend their power and 19 light lines that far, giving as a reason that they did not care to take on public business, thus becoming "a utility". The maintenance of a different electric system prevents the co-operative distribution of current between the West Kauai and East Kauai plantations and communities. When the Wainiha plant is changed over and brought up to modern standards, as it undoubtedly will be some day, the Kauai Electric Company with its charter permitting public utility service will undoubtedly be able to fill this one distinct lack in community service. Kat uai Telephone Company Kanai Telephone Company, an unlimited corporation operating under a fifty-year charter granted during the monarchy, in 1880, is now 43 years old, which makes it the oldest telephone company in Hawaii. It started with a working capital of $10,000, which has been increase(l at intervals to its present $50,000 of stock outstanding. The value of its extensive plant, built up by earnings put back into the business, is certainly double the capital stock, which would indicate that there will be a stock dividend of good proportions before the recapitalization which will be necessary on the expiration of its charter. It is a "home" company, owned entirely on Kauai, without affiliation with any other of the Hawaiian telephone companies. The service which it extends throughout the island is of the very best, the company having a larger proportionate mileage of main line copper wiring than is found on the other islands. Copper main lines have a theoretical "life" of about fifty years. However, there is so much salt spray in the air, especially along the windward coast from Nawiliwili to Hanalei, that the company is up against frequent breakage of its main lines. For some unaccountable reason the copper wire crystallizes within five years after it is strung. Superintendent W. II. Wood has put his problem before the experts of the United States bureau of standards at Washington and other authorities in matters electrical without any one thus far having been able to offer sug gestions as to how to cure the pilikia. Copper does not usually act this way and he is curious to know why. Here is an interesting scientific problem for the attention of local electrical engineers. The telephone poles all over the island are mainly concrete. Either the whole pole is of this material, poured with ladder-holes in which the lineman inserts iron rods as he climbs; or the base is of concrete, with wood or steel poles bolted on. The concrete stub base of the latter type is seven feet long. The full-length concrete pole has not been a success as it is hard to climb. The company is also trying out a considerable mileage of aluminum compound wire with copper core, an innovation which is claimed to be superior to either copper or galvanized iron where the telephone lines are exposed to salt spray. 20 Port Allen LIEHUE, KAUAI, July 31.-Exceptional transportation facilities are one of the advantages of the Garden Island. Oahu has its single commercial harbor, Honolulu; Hawaii, one, at Hilo; Maui, two-Kahului and Lahaina; but Kauai alone of all the islands of the group has, made or in the making, three deepwater harbors for the accommodation of deep-sea vessels. To the westward there is Port Alien, the terminus of the Kauai Railway Company and port of call for the big freighters of the Matson fleet. Captain Leavitt, port captain in charge for the last twelve years, after an apprenticeship of 34 years at sea, is authority for the statement that Port Allen can handle anything from the smallest to the biggest ship afloat, and load or unload cargo as cheaply and as expeditiously as any port in the world working under lighterage conditions. The bay is semicircular, with a 30-foot bluff at the southern side and a rocky, shelving beach along the northern shore. The bay is three-quarters of a mile across. It has a good bottom and furnishes good anchorage in all weathers except during a southerly storm. If a "Kona" blows up during the winter months any steamer can find safe harbor just around the point at Koloa, an open roadstead exceptionally free from cross-tides and currents, according to mariners acquainted with island waters. Port Allen's railway terminus, warehouses and fueling station are at the south side of the bay on top of the bluff. Tracks on a short breakwater form the storage sidings for the fleet of 30-foot, 10-ton lighters and the steam launches which tow them. A short chord breakwater forms an off-shore barrier to protect the foot of the sugar carrier which runs down inside the seaward breakwater. Next, to the northward, a concrete pier with electric derrick at the outer end transfers heavy freight direct from the lighters to railway cars, or vice-versa. Everything in the way of machinery at the port is operated by electric power. The sugar warehouse, 525 feet long, has storage space for 15,000 tons of sugars from Koloa, McBryde and Hawaiian Sugar Company's plantations, besides handling a good many car loads of pineapples brought by train from the cannery at Lawai. A double siding under cover runs the entire length of the warehouse. Three sets of electric conveyors take the sugar direct from the cars into the warehouse while two run under the floor of the warehouse down to the water's edge. When loading sugars while the mills are grinding, the bags can be sent direct from the cars to the lighters at the same time that the warehoused sugar is being sent aboard. A third of the floor the full length of the warehouse is given to each of the mills using it, there being three sets of floor carriers to the alleyways left between the stacked bags. 21 The arrangement is such that the vwarehiouse ( caii be filled or emptied rapidly, the average working capacity being 25,000) bags of sgair per 110-hour (ay. At the water edge of the carrier there is anchorage for five lighters. Launches and lighters can load 13%) tons of sugar per hour continuously, so that Port Allen has the record of,about the same rate of des'platch as either ililo or Honolulu when working ullder fair weather conditions. A six-pipe line, 120( feet long, extends from the end of the breakwater to a battery of Standard Oil storage tanks and a nearlby nest of molasses tanks. The oil company has storage tanks for 33,000 barrels of fuel oil and 210,000 lbarrels of gasoline, distillate and kerosene. The plalltaioin miolusses taiiks hold 1250 tons. The oil conipany has its own puImiips operating each of its four pipe lines. F~r the delivery of molasses aboard, an electrically operatedl Worthington pump with cylinders 6i. 5by 12 inches, with captacity of 50 tons of molasses lper hour, does duty. It is operated by a 50-l. p. alternating current, 25-cycle motor. The pipe lines are tall 6-inch. Heavy hose buoyed by pontoons connect shore ends and ship. Besides these utilities Port Alleii has a big hiniber ya rd, plaiiing mijill, ierchandise warehonses, machine slolps, round house, lalbor camlps, office blilding and tasteful resideices for its staff. It is the shlippiiig port and base of sulpllies for the south antl southwestern (listricts of Kauai. Th c, JIaw,(1aia Ci (Jan crics (lo inpa2nty LHUI-E, August 9.-It only takes 68 iuiinites to coulme from Oallu to the landing field adjoining Lihue plantation's (lairy, auI(l sonic of these days the air route will be popular and well patronized. Kauai is better off than the other islands ii haxving fiat sandy stretches all along the win(lward coast where these marvels of modern rapid transportation can (Irop (own out of the clouds without danger of getting tangledl up in brush or invisible fences. I look to see Kauai take the lead in the develolpment of comnnercial aeronautics. They will if they make up their minds to it. Pineap)ples are well established on the Giarden island, although the chief interest is sngar. There are two plantatious, the Hawaiian Canneries Company, Ltd., operating along the northermi stretch of the windward coast, and the Kanai Fruit and Land Company, Ltd., occupying the uplands above JKol oa and MicBryde sugar properties. Both are prosperous anol both are steadily increasing their acreage. The HIawaiian Canneries factory is on the beach at Kapaa, mnilway between its field at M.oloaa and shipping Iport at Ahukini. Although still packing, the company has passed the peak of its 1923 production. Its fruit ripens throughout the year, and the cannery will be at work 48 weeks out of the.52. This year's pack will le about 1-40,000 cases, and the estimnate for next Year is for a crop letween 16,-,00( and 170,000 cases, with perhaps 200,001 in 1925. 22 The factory is compactly arranged, with the machinery well entrained from receiving platforms to shipping yard. Wood fuel is burned under the boilers, while the power for the machines is generated by a 25 k. w. motor driven by a 25 h. p. Fairbanks-Morse distillate engine. A 10 h. p. "spare" takes care of additional power requirements during periods of peak load. There are five Gianaca tables with fruit capacity of 24,000 cans per tenhour day. There being no can factory on Kauai, the company makes its own containers, using "flats" shipped in crates from the American Can Company's Iwilei plant. These are the side-seamed skeleton cans, mashed flat so as not to take cubic ton measurement. Ingenious machines ream them out to their original roundness and then put on the bottoms by means of gasketed clinch joints, no solder being used. Then they go rattling off in overhead elevators to the filling tables, through the syrup gauge and cookers, to pass through the final "papale" machine, which clinches their hats on. After the canning process is finished the cans go through the lacquer machines before reaching the warehouse. The entire Hawaiian Canneries' pack is shipped in lacquered tins, in this regard differing from other Hawaiian products. The cannery is on the beach, where salt spray is driven inshore by the trade winds, and if not lacquered the cans quickly rust. Because of its isolation and the high cost of getting supplies, this factory only manufactures four sizes, "gallons", "squats", "2s, and "21/2 Were there a branch of the American Can Company on Kauai they could use all of the sizes put out by the Honolulu canneries. When the two plantations get up to the million-case aggregate pack they may be relieved from the necessity of making their own tins, an expensive necessity because of the complicated machinery which must be leased from the big can makers. Another difference in practice is that this packing company uses handmade instead of machine-nailed boxes. A spur of the Makee Sugar Company's plantation railway brings supplies in from Ahukini and takes care of the outgoing pack, but the fruit comes in trucks over the government road from the pineapple fields at Moloaa, ten miles up the coast. Chief Engineer George N. Cunningham, who is well known because of his long connection with island sugar mills, is in charge of the plant. A native of South Africa, who got into the sugar game in Queensland, he has since had long training at Hawi, Honokaa and Makaweli mills, graduating into pineapples only a year and a half ago. Manager Albert Iorner, Jr., has the reputation of being one of the keenest of the rising generation of pineapple experts, and from what little I know of field practices in the cultivation of this fruit, I venture that there are few who know their crop better. His fields at Moloaa are as good as the best anywhere in this Territory. Horner's theory of pineapple cultivation is that "95 per cent of the profit is due to the preparation and care given soil and seed before planting". Very 23 evidently, this young agriculturist takes no stock in that old saying that "anybody can be a farmer". His fields show it. That there is truth behind this theory is evidenced by comparison with "homestead" pineapples on adjoining lands, where land exposure and character of soils are as nearly identical with the plantation fields as is possible in Iawaii's "localized" agriculture. Deep tractor plowing is followed by subsoiling, while a soil "mulch" is maintained with disc cultivators. Follows the planting of carefully selected "tops", which are set out immediately after the fruit is harvested, in rotation across the new made seedbed. As a result of this immediate resetting while the tops have all the vigor of new growth in them, there has been unusual uniformity in the sequence, quality, size, and time of ripening of these succeeding plantings. The so-called "Hilo type" of Smooth Cayenne is the variety grown, its fruits being slightly more conical than the Oahu type. Suckers are used as well as tops, but Horner believes the average results better from the latter. The 1924 pines show remarkable uniformity and give promise of highly satisfactory plant crop returns. However, it is not the plant crop that shows the results of Horner's intensive method of soil preparation so much as the ratoon crops. Like H. P. Faye, of Kekaha, Manager Horner believes crops with the ratooning habit can be perpetuated almost indefinitely. Ills big fields of 1924 and 1925 pineapples lie makai of the government road. His banner fields are mauka of the road, where the passerby does not see them. Here on a gentle reverse slope facing the mountains there are fields beyond comparison better than any other in these islands. The plant crop averaged 20 tons of pineapples per acre; the first ratoon crop 21 tons; and, with the fruit only just commencing to ripen, and seven tons harvested the last week in July, there is promise of 25 tons or more per acre this year-the second ratoons. The plants do not look like ratoons, having the deep, healthy blue-gray tinge of one-year crop. There is no indication of soil or crop exhaustion. The Hawaiian Canneries Company "has got something" in these Moloaa pineapple fields. Recognizing the probabilities ahead of the pineapple industry, the directors of Lihue Plantation Company antedated the action of Waialua Agricultural Company over two years ago. Long before the latter acquired its interest in Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Lihue had put through a similar deal through which it acquired 25 per cent of the stock of Hawaiian Canneries Company in payment for leasehold rights to some thousands of acres of pineapple lands for a long term of years. Both companies are closely owned, so that the significance of this linking of sugar and pineapples was not widely recognized. It is significant, however. Public attention has been directed towards' Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Hawaii as fields for the "possible" limit of expansion of pineapple production. Available land is not a limiting factor on Kauai as it may be elsewhere. 24 The limiting factor is labor. Kauai is a tight little island which has been gibed at because of the solidarity of its people. I have this to say for it and them, however, that in all my goings and comings, up and down and around, I saw no loafers. Everybody was busy. Living on Kauai may be like a family party, where all are related and strangers have to be properly introduced, but everybody has a job. I saw High School boys and girls by the score working in the cane fields, harvesting pineapples, busy earning money by sweating for it. Camps, towns and roads are deserted between sun-up and four o'clock. The spirit of work rules during work hours. In play time everybody plays-baseball, swimming, polo, or tennis. The island is only thirty miles across and it does not matter much where the game is going to be, everybody goes. "With no idle surplus of men, there must plainly be either the further importation of laborers, or a limit in the rate of expansion of industries on the Garden Island." This was the conclusion given by Walter D. McBryde, manager of the Kauai Fruit & Land Company, Ltd., with whom I discussed the future of Kauai's pineapple industry. It was his opinion that labor was the only serious limiting factor in pineapple production. There is unlimited capital ready to embark in rapid expansion at the production end, and a very large acreage suitable for this crop. His cannery will turn out 125,000 cases this year, and between 175,000 and 200,000 cases next year, with perhaps 250,000 cases in 1925. This plantation draws its entire labor supply from the Omao, Lawai, and Kalaheo homesteads and whatever surplus can be spared by McBryde Sugar Company. Organized originally to give the homesteaders a cash crop for lands too wind-swept and cold for cane, results have been somewhat similar to those in other homestead districts throughout the islands. This I will say, however, that the mauka Omao and Lawai homesteads are as plrosperous a group of "smaill farmers" as there are anywhere. Where men took upl these lots with the intention of making homes, they have succeeded to an unusual degree, that is, unusual for Hawaii. Unfortunlately, a considerable number who went on the land were impelled by the rambling feature of our homestead laws, under which men bet so many years of life against the fee ownership of a piece of land, hoping that the resale value will recoup them for the minimum expenditure of cash and labor during the wasted period. But I am talking pineapples, not land policies. The soils and climate of Kauai seem to give better average field yield-and-quality results than any other island. This may be too wide a generalization on insufficient evidence, but to me it looks that way. Man-power is the limiting factor. Two years more will see half a million cases of pineapples packed by the Kauai canneries. It will have to remain at that unless the working population increases numerically, in my opinion. It is something to think about, study and plan for. 25 Of course. I, did not make tha-t 68-miinute flight from 04ahu1 to Kauai, that having been the time given by others,- who hiave made the tril) by aeroplane. It is fifteen- yveas since I last visited K(auai, and if I conie again fifteen year~-; from now, I hope it will lbe that way. Nuwiriifili mid Ahiukhii LiTuTE, Aug. L.-The poit of Nawiliwili. nearest Lihule, lies in the sanw1 relative geographical position as Ililo harbo-r on Hawaii. It has long been the landing for passenger trfic and there is no onie who hias, grone from oi- to Kauai during the last 30 years lblt knows,- wiell its chief chtaracteristi4'CS. The harbor is.~ a, deep iT-sha~ped bay openting between rocky headllanlds, the inner curve a, shoaling reef. The chiannel skirts, the north shore while the reef jults out fromt the, southern shore. The United States government is building a 12400-foot rubblie break~water ait rlight tangles with the south shore. alonig the selaward edge of the reef. Thiis, will be completed in another two yea r s. The breakwater isbeing coiistructed by the 1 nitedl States Engineers.-; not by contra ctors, wNhich ci rcumstanmce leads to the conclusion that there aintus be excellent reasons for its construction, andI that the, future use of the hiarbor is to be milita-ry, rather than mierc,'antile. -Nawiliwili is, to be one of the units in the system of national. defense. The nature of the terrain surrounoling the harbor lend(s strength to this.; conchision. The port ctan be readhily fortified and easily defenledl. At a, meetiig Mond ay the, Kaua i chamber of commerce (committee 011 harbor developmecmt went on record las in favor of b~uilding a shorewarol mole with an area of 8( acres, out of the dIredgings from the basin which is to be excavated insidec lie breakwater. The an cli( ra ge betweem muol e -anmd break wa ter will1 1)e larger than Hon oluliuh ha~rbor arId aswell- or lbetter protectedl from storms, whiile the broad( entrance wNill be a (lecidled adlva~ntage. I.)redging is to commence next year. al11though it is going to take two years to comimpl1ete the b~reakwater to the endl of the reef at the edge of the chammuel. A teii-year developmnent program has been projectedl, it is reporteol, the end of wxhich will see Nawiliwili harbor in ~some measure coordinate with Lahainia,and Hlilo harbors as outlying naval bases for the lprotection of Pearl Harbor. N~eedless to say, the residents of this island wvant to see this wvork go ahead]. although there is little commercial backing for the, project. To see what Nawiliwili is- going to mean to Kauai an(l the Territory at large, men musthave vision broad enough to carry beyond the imme(liate perslpective. They Must see ten, twenty or fifty years aheadI to the years when, while sugar and Pineapples will continue to be important, they will not be so all-important as they now seem. 26 For ten years, certainly, perhaps for many more, Port Allen and Ahukini will continue the principal shipping ports of this island. It would be unreasonable to expect Alexander & Baldwin to "scrap" their investment at Port Allen, or for American Factors to abandon Ahukini. I fail to see the advantage of such concentration of commercial shipping interests at a single port, especially if I am guessing right as to what is behind this direct move of the United States government. In fact, conditions might arise when it might be detrimental to have Nawiliwili much more than a supply base for our fleet. Be that as it may, the fact remains that this is the only seaport in the United States which is being developed on the same basis as the inland river improvement projects. It is up to us to stand aside and be observers only, helping it along if and when we are asked to help. Ahukini, ten miles north of Nawiliwili, is a bottle-shaped harbor the neck of which has been partially closed by a breakwater built by a subsidiary of Lihue plantation and American Factors, the Ahukini Railway and Terminal Comnpany. Landing, breakwater and terminals are built on fee-simple land. The whole is a privately owned and operated enterprise designed to serve the little group of "AmFac" enterprises surrounding Lihue. The harbor has been dredged by the terminal company to a uniform depth of thirty feet over a radius of one thousand feet from the wharf, giving berthage for vessels as large as the Lurline. It does not compare with Port Allen in capacity, the latter safely handling the largest freighters in the Pacific trade. The entrance to Ahukini harbor is a hundred fathoms between channel buoys with considerable leeway on the south side as the seventy-fathom breakwater ends in seven fathoms of water. Beyond the dredged thousand-foot basin abutting the wharf the water is eighteen feet deep, shoaling to a long sand beach at the head of the bay. The United States government has acquired five acres at the head of the bay, including about half the length of the beach, as a landing station for army seaplanes. It is reported that a dredging program is afoot here also, supplementary to the enormous dredging program at Nawiliwili. The harbor is surrounded on both sides by a 50-foot pali, except at the head of the bay where the land slopes gradually from sea level. A lagoon lies between the sand beach and the shore, and in the shoreward nook lies the finest coconut grove there is in all the islands. Groves of ironwood surround the harbor on all sides. At present, Ahukini is a "one-ship" harbor, which is satisfactory for the purposes for which breakwater and sugar warehouses were built by American Factors interests. Two warehouses adjoin the wharf, perched on the high bluff above the landing, each 300 by 50 feet, with combined storage capacity of 7500 tons. There are four sidings the length of the warehouses so that loading can go forward from the cars as well as from the stacked sugar. Each warehouse has a center floor carrier; one with a movable stacker, the other with an overhead carrier the full length of the building. 27 Two chutes discharge direct into the hatches of a vessel breasted against the wharf. The Kilauea took 8000 bags, besides 5000 cases of pineapples, aboard Tuesday between 8:30 A. 3 P. and 3.. after unloading freight, which gives a good notion of the rapidity of discharge at this landing. Ahukini serves Lihue plantation, Makee Sugar Company and the smaller Grove Farm and Kipu plantations; also, Htawaiian Canneries Company; besides handling the incoming freight for this section of the island. Its landward approach is more commodious than that of any other landing on the island; while splendid roads center here from all directions. Of the Koloa roadstead I have said nothing. Its fame is well known throughout Pacific waters-a safe haven in all weathers. Koloa was the anchorage of whalers and trading ships from the very beginning of Hawaii's intercourse with the outside world. It takes anywhere from 15 to 20 years to test out a new cane variety so that the time element governs opinion relative to the merits or demerits of new seedlings. "Eckart" cane (formerly "H1-109"), is now recognized as about the best variety for low-lying, hot, irrigated fields, returning enormous yield of both:ane and sugar when cultivated under the most favorable conditions. On Kauai, discussion is raging among the plantation managers as to exactly what constitutes these "most favorable" conditions, and it is quite probable that the sparks will fly at the next meeting of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association when the managers get personal and tell what they know. All agree that Eckart cane wants lots of water. The experiment station staff have found that it can get away with 200,000 gallons of water per acre every seven days, or the equivalent of an 8-inch rainfall weekly. However, its sugar-making capacity depends on there being sunshine, which eliminates this cane- from cultivation in the cloudy-rainy districts. So far there is agreement by all who have grown it. The dispute as to how to handle it arises over this variety's tasseling tendencies. Some managers aver that it is impossible to carry Eckart cane over the end of its first twelve months without almost every stool tasseling, in which case the tonnage loss from dried-out sticks one year later, at harvest time, may be very heavy. These therefore advocate "cutting back" before the end of the first season's growth, thus forcing root growth and preventing losses through premature flowering. On the other side stand the managers who claim that the tonnage losses through premature tasseling are doubly offset if the cane is not cut back. In the first place, they say, every (lead stalk of tasseled cane bears from one to half a dozen "lala" side-shoots, and it is common experience that these lalas have more sugar in them than there was in the original cane stalks. 28 Their second argument is that it is "foolish" to spend six months' labor growing cane only to cut it back for the sake of "forcing" it, the fertilizer, cultivation and irrigation water used in carrying the cane up to that stage in its growth being practically wasted thereby. This Eckart cane was originated in 1905 and is therefore only 18 years old. By the time it is 30, its character and characteristics will probably be, like that of a man of that age, fairly well known. The intervening period between adolescence and maturity will supply abundant material for much snappy contention to liven up the Association's annual conventions; the subject of debate being: "Does cutting back Eckart (otherwise 11-109) cane pay?" IHa aiian, Sug.ar Comlpi)anty MAKAWELI, KAUAI, Nov. 16.-In my earlier visit to the Garden Island, Manager B. 1). Baldwin of Hawaiian Sugar Company, Ltd., was away and I have therefore returned to Kauai especially to see this plantation. It is one of the few sugar plantations in Hawaii which I have never before visited, although its story was often told me in the old days. Hawaiian Sugar Company, Ltd., better and more widely known as "Makaweli," is the one and only plantation in the history of Hawaii's sugar industry which exceeded the estimates of the promoters. It is the only one among them all where realization surpassed anticipation; where development proceeded according to program; and which paid its first dividend when only 75 ler cent of the original capital had been paid into the company's treasury by the subscribers. That record alone makes Makaweli a shining example among the entire list of industrial units organized in these islands from the very beginning of things. From this optimistic beginning, the plantation has progressed in orderly fashion, making the further remarkable record of never having passed a dividend. It has made profits on every crop, in good years and bad ones, when prices were low or high. The company was chartered October 24, 1889; commenced plowing land, constructing ditches and building houses in January, 1890; and commenced planting cane for crop on July 1, 1891, as soon as the first irrigation water was brought down to the new lands. Henry P. Baldwin did not make the mistake of planting his cane before everything was in readiness. He put in 120 acres of Lahaina for seed in 1890 but told his shareholders that there would be no returns before 1893, when he promised them profits on 12,000 tons of sugar. That first crop of 1893 yielded 13,037 tons and was harvested and marketed before the beginning of the great panic, which commenced in the late autumn of that year. The crop was harvested from 1410 acres planted in 1891, and 120 acres of short ratoons, planted the year before, from which all of the seed had been cut. 29 In the old days, Makaweli ha(1 the reputation of being tile dirtiest, dustiest, reld dirt pllantation in Ilawaii. The story goes that menl who comlplained to II. 1P. Baldwin of the awfulness of having to work in this dust lieap, sleep in it, and eat it mixed with their food three times a day got small comfort from the pro(moter, his inval nriable answer being, "Never lmild. This is tell-tonll' (lst. And so it was, andt so it has been for 0)-(old years. The I )lanltation lies oln the western side o(f Kauai between Kekalha. a( McBry(e. It is a de(ep, narrow lproperty three miles across, its uppermost cane fields at an elevatioln of 1001) feet, b)eing seven miles from the sea. Both lanl (1 and water were leaseod by IT. P. Baldwin from (Gay & Iobilson for a term of fifty years from 1SSt9, the terms of the lease providing that the lessee nmst harvest aaiid grind all of the ess)or's cane each ear bletween the months of December land March. Gay & Robiinson sugars are always coulll(l a p)ar'; oi tlhe Maakaweli cro(p. The Hawaiian Sugar Conimpany controls only certain of the fields. ithe landowiers having retained thet three great vatlleys withl thirl dellas, where they debouch into the sea. Each of the main gulches 1ranches above, there being seven in all at the upper end of the plantation. The west Ka uali gulches are ('ca1yo(is —(leep), wide go(rges wi th ipecipit us )alis. The only others like themtl are the gulc(hes onl tlbe south side of Molokai. These great clefts, reachling (lear to tile sea, (livid(e the i)la.lltationl into natural sections. It is im)possible to cross fromI ole lield to another, men and materials having to be transferred lby sen(ling them down to the government Iroad anl ulp a galin. The p)lanltition leases 5,6(i; acres, all cai(e ]a1nd, an(d owns 0only 23) aicr'es, whic(h was recently )bought from the govelrnment as a (lairy site. The land ha s a(bout the same slope as the e(.lsternl end of the Wahiawa p)laills, on1 OGahui, an1, facing the west and protected from winds by the mnountains, tlteh ert e high. It is landlwhic wa s absolutely barren 1)efore the planltation was started. Tile "red dirt" counltry bordlers the sea. Above, between tile tremnenldous gorges, the soils are chocolate, shadling into greyishl brown and, while all of the coimpI)ay's fields are iplow-la1n(ls, there are 1 good many sterile, rocky ridges where the soils are poor. It is hot enlough along the coast to satisfy any salamandl(er, blt Manager Ben Baldwin tells me that one of his very hottest fields lies at the tip-top of the I)lantation in a shallow, (ralter-like valley with slopes protecting the land from winlds. Water development ha(1 to prec(ede th(e planting of the mlain crop in the early1 life of the plantation when 12,000 tons was IT. P. Baldwin's "1unit of l)roduction." Tell years later, the conmpany emp)loyed M... ('Shaugnessy, the leadingf American irrigation engineer of his times, and further water development was nIldlertaken, so that today, the company crops its entire acreage. JInstead of a 12,000()-ton unit, as originally plannled, the IHawaiian Sugar (o. is now a 2.),00(-ton1 )lantation. In the beginning, the company got the most of its water from the ITanapepe gulch. O'Shaugnessy laid out a system of tunnels Iand ditches, which also gave the plantation wvatter from the upper reaches of the Olokele gulch. 30 The present minimum flow from these two sources, 25,000,000 gallons daily from Hanapepe and 42,000,000 gallons from Olokele, constitute the entire irrigation supply. There are no pumps. Supplementing this ditch flow, there are seven reservoirs with an aggregate capacity of 150,000,000 gallons, or about two and a half days' water. The night flow from the water heads, and the day flow on Sundays and holidays goes into the reservoirs, to be distributed to the cane fields during the daylight hours. The minimum supply of 67,000,000 gallons daily is insufficient for optimum requirements. Manager Ben Baldwin's ideal irrigation cycle is to make the rounds every ten days, whereas, in dry years, when there is no surplus above the minimum supply, the cycle is 16 to 17 days. In other words, he would like fifty per cent more water in order to get the most out of promoter I. P. Baldwin's "ten-ton dust." The fertility is there, but it needs water to bring it out. The Olokele ditch is thirteen miles long, three-quarters being tunnels. The Hanapepe ditch is also thirteen miles long, with only two or three short tunnels and several miles of flumes. All of the upper Olokele system, from the intake far up in the mountains, is underground down to the 1400 foot level. The physical difference in the two systems makes the Olokele water cheap and the Hanapepe water dear. One requires only four ditch tenders while the other often calls for the employment of large gangs of men to keep the flumes and open ditches in repair. The tunnels are concreted at the sides and bottom wherever seepage is bad, and are arched in a few places. This Olokele water system enters into the economy of the plantation in another way. The tunnels emerge at the 1400-foot level, while the uppermost cane field is at the 1000-foot level. By skillful engineering, a 10,000,000-gallon feeder was led out from the main ditch three-quarters of a mile to the brow of a ridge, where there is a 221-foot drop. A pipe line was installed and a power house erected at the lower end. This is the Olokele hydro-electric plant, located at the 1025-foot level, just above the highest cane field. Here a Pelton wheel, directly connected to an alternating current G. E. generator, turns out 500 kilowatts of powerenough to electrify everything on the plantation, except the mill train. The unit is compact and efficient, requiring the attendance of only one man. All there is to it is the Pelton wheel, a direct current exciter, and the alternating current generator, all in a space about 18 feet square. Beside it, there is another duplicate foundation, and penstock, ready for a second unit, and, some day, the company may install another generator which would enable it to eliminate all steam power at the mill. There is enough water for three or four times the power they are now getting. Lower down, there is another 175-foot fall, which might be utilized, except for the fact that the land to be served by that particular distribution ditch only calls for 5,000,000 gallons. 31 Alongside the power house, which is at the northeast corner of the plantation, there are two transformers, which step up the 2300-volt current to 11,000. Other transformers at the mill step it down to 4,000 volts, while transformers elsewhere reduce the voltage to electric lighting or small motor requirements. The power line of 11,000 volts capacity is of heavy copper wire supported on concrete poles thirty feet from the ground. The Hanapepe water goes to the cane fields below the 400-foot level. The Olokele system takes care of everything above 400 feet, or may be shunted to the lower fields if there is a surplus. So much for soil and water. The combination of the two will produce a crop of 23,400 tons of sugar next year, of which 18,000 tons will be Makaweli's share and the balance, Gay & Robineson's. But, to make it, there must be the cane, the mill, and the working organization, each showing interesting variations from other plantations. Chief Engineer J. K. W. Carmichael was away on his vacation, and hence I was schooled in the mysteries and secrets of the mechanical equipment by Assistant Engineers Paul Baldwin and C. W. Smith. To start with, Hawaiian Sugar Company's sugar factory is "All red," which is to say, that everything outside is painted red to match the color of the dirt. Its organization is white, and true blue. I find here a spirit of friendly cooperation throughout the organizationm, which speaks well for the management. Everyone in all departments was not only ready to point out the excellences of their own, but inclined to branch off and "blow" about what the others are doing. The mill is at the foot of the main street, leading down from the government road. I speak of it as a street because it is asphalt macadamized, with flower-bordered curbs, cement sidewalks, ornamental electroliers, and has a double row of bungalow homes, which might have been transplanted from Manoa, fronting it. At the foQt of the main street there is a banyan tree, which was probably given more care than any other single tree in Hawaii-all because a forestry "expert" came along one day and said, "You can't make it grow." They did and it did. In fact, it was big enough when it was three years old to make older trees blush for not having lived an upright life in their early youth. But, to get back to the mill. There are loop tracks from the storage yards, leading alongside a new electrically operated Wicks unloader, installed this summer. The bed track at the end of the carrier has been blasted three feet deeper and extended ten feet in order to install a new invention or contraption, which automatically shuts the cane doors after the "Wicks" has unioaded the cane. This is a curved fender of heavy pipe. The radius of the curve is what shuts the car door-and saves labor. The full cars are pulled lp to the unloader by an electric winch, while the empties go down a gravity siding. The factory building is big and roomy, painted white inside, with plenty of windows and ventilation. It is well arranged. At the head of the carrier are two Meinecke knives; followed by a Searby shredder operated by a 300 h. p. 32 steaml turbine; Krajewski crusher; and four three-roller mills. A Peck strainer is to be installed. There are two (Corliss engines, the tirst operating crusher, first and( secondl mills; the second Corliss operating the third and fourth mills. A new platform with railings to prevent the possibility of men falling into the mill train has been built this sumnmer. Elwart carriers connect the mills. The rolls are the largest on Kauai, gauging 78 by 34 inches. IUntde:r average working conditions, the mill grindss to 40 tos of cane per hour at 7.75 extraction, making 100() tons of sugar per week. If, for any reason, it should be necessary to spieed up tie mill, twice that amount can be 1ha1ndled, at the expense of extraction. The mill stands fourth in efficiency in comparison with all other plantations 3in lawauii, and holds high place because of the high margin of safety in both mill and boiling house. The plantation has a, big lathe aaul grooves its rollers or puts teeth il its crushers. Only the castings are imported in the rough. A hydraulic press, to force the roller on its shaft, is one of the tools in their small but well equipped machine shops. Millinlg p)rlactice is to ipumi the fourth mill juices ahead of the third; tle third mill juices ahead of the second; and the second mill juices to the first mill. They mlacerate 35 to 40 per cent. Due to the preponderance of electric lunits, there is always enouglh bIaglasse, and no extra fuel is ulsed in thle fire room. A 15-ton handl-crane over the tirain transfers mill parts to cars on a spulr tralc runningf off through the machine sh11op to the main line. Thle boiling house, lateral. to the mill beyo)(nd the mud presses, has two lHowe juice sca(les without autoimatic devices. There are 50 o( more varieties of c(ale in the crop, and automatic limers are out of the question. Then, in serlies, there follow 1c conic(al bo(tto(m settling tanks; quadruple-effect; four vac('uulm l)ans; 10 )md l )r'esses; 1 ( crystallizers f 4(-tonl massecuite c ap)acity each; six 40-inchb walter-drivenl centrifugal.s for the No. 1 slugars and 2l 7 (0-in(ch m(otorized lbelt-dri ven machines for the low grades. The water-dlrivell celltrifugalls get their power from centrifugal pumps drivte b!y electricity. A new nmudl press floor was lbuilt this summen r at(nd new concrlete floolr underl the Iimud track is to bIe installed, also new pipinlg for this part of the factory. They are thinking at)out the Petree process, l)ut on the "wavtchful waitilig" talc(k. The "J'ava systeml," or a modification of it, is used in the )boiling house. Thlis fac(tory (';11 dry sug1ar at any tnime, whether the mill is running or not. Ab1)nd(tait electric l)ower to ruln 1il'-(conmJ)ressors a1d(l water pI)Uill1)S gives this planlt a suI)eriorlity eljoye(d by few othler mills, andl because it has cheap) hydroelectric power thle Iboiling house end could hanlle a 50,000-ton crop. They use (no steam except for the hot juice Ipumips, pans and qluadruplee(tfect. ('omnpressed air is always onl tap) if the work required canlnot be d(one!by motor i(owel di rect. In tile fire roomI there are three Stirling boilers which supply steam for mill, shredder and steam turbine, and four horizontal tubular )boilers, ten vyears olfd, for the lboiling house. There are Green economizers but no super]hea ter A new feel-water, horizontal-type, doullle-acting pinump has been 33 ordered. There are Bristol recorders for the steaml pressure. The water galuges are read every lhalf hour, and tle chemist takes continuous samples of the flue gases, analyzing them for carbon dioxide. All thlrough the mlill asl d factory, wlherever electricity lhas replaced steam, the old steamI e(quipment is left in place land is interc(hageable at an instant's notice (One interesting item of equlipment is the old Scotch vacuum pumps, installed iln 1893 but still just as goo(d as they ever were. Hawaiian Sugar ((Comp)aly, Ltd., on the kona coast of thle (Garden Tsland, ltas closer business relations with San Francisco than with Ihonolulu. Its sugars go direct from PJort Allen and the major portion of its supplies sand in(coming freight also comle direct from the coast, altll(ligh the businesi s 1headqul;arters of thle plaltfationl is Alexander & IBaldwinl, tollnoluln. Tle, pllan)tatio() population is bletween 3000) and 3500, of whomI 1700 )are oil the comlpany's pay roll. There lare fourteell plaltation villa'ges. To supply tlle needs of the emnployes there is oe1 lharge ('entral store at Mlakaweli and foulr 1branch stores on thle (lifferent sections, thlis property, as I previously statedl, being d(ivided into as many indeplendenlt warls )y tremlendtous gorg(es I11ring from tile imountailns to tile sea. It is impoll)ssible to cross tile p)lanltation laterally (on contour levels exce)pt at tle governimenlt road. This utter inlaccessibility of tields on eitheri side of these gorges requires tlhat each vertical slice of the plantati(on have its o(wn ilndependenlt labor( and il)ply organization, all r trilutaryl t ho tlle main blusiness focus at MIakaweli vill;age. The general store systemn, und(ler the llman.agelmenlt of 1Carl Bayer, is intenlded for the convenience of the emplovyes. It (loes not buy for the l)la1.ta1tion as a compiuan7y but is maintainlted solely for tlhe indi(ividllalI cus(tomers. Tlle merchan(lise turnover excee(led $400,000( last year, and will be mnore for the current year. All purchases for the plantation itself are handled through a mainl supply warehouse, in charge of Joseph 1'eachl. lie has lillt recently joined the adiinistrative staff after a good many years of army service in the arsenal of the ordntlance depalrtment, andl co(nfi(led to me that it takes more varied items of (eq1uipment to run a sugar plantati(on than to sllpply the IUnited Sftates army. Bales of sugar bags, lumber, steel, cement, hoes and harness, fertilizers, feed, filter cloth, Imachine tools, drugs alnd sporting goods are checked in, a:rranged in orderly fashion, an(l requisitioned out. The Iplantation has one (f the best central suppI)ly warehlloses I have seen, a steel building with traveling clrane, concrete floors.and meetal shelves andl lockers, making it as near albsolutely fireproof as a l)uilding (can be. A cardex inventory system shows the location and quantities on hand, goods ordere(l, goods in transit with problable date of arrival, and other (lata to piut tile entire service of supply o tile basis of the closest business economy. Surrounding the mill are the usual subsidiaries, carpenter shop; car shop; cu(pola o1il-burning brass founlry; six 40) x 100-foot wareholushes; an ice machine anid refrigeration c1hamiber wlhere fresh mIeats and fruits imported 34 direct from the coast are stored; garage; blacksmith shop; welding shops; and roundhouse with stalls for the company's five Baldwin locomotives. There are mill storage yards to hold the company's 600 Gregg cane cars. They have just placed an order for 75 new cane cars and 10 track cars with the Gregg people. They have built fifteen 15-ton box cars, six 15-ton flats, and one observation car in their own shops. The latter is reserved for the exclusive use of such exalted personages as visiting directors and school children. The company has thirty miles of permanent railway. There are fuel oil tanks for the locomotives and the three sets of Fowlers. The molasses from the mill is stored in three rectangular masonry cisterns which have been in use since the factory was first built. Oil is brought from Port Allen and molasses taken there for shipment to the coast in tank cars. A coal yard is one item of equipment not usually found on Hawaiian plantations, coal being the fuel used for domestic purposes. There is a large and well-stocked lumber yard also. Coal is used at the mill at the beginning and end of the crop. Assistant Engineer C. W. Smith, who was my guide through the mill yard subsidiaries, called attention to a new wrinkle which will be of interest to other engineers. Formerly, the company used about sixty bales of wool annually for packing car journals. It now saves all of the burlap bale wrappings, and trimmings from torn bags, shreds them, and uses this jute waste instead of wool. Thirty bales of jute yarn obtained annually in this way pack all the car-wheel boxes and furnish the waste used in mill and machine shops, for trucks and locomotives. They buy practically no cotton waste for the plantation and "never have hot journals or bearings where jute waste is used," Smith sail. Other motive power besides the railro(ad system compries a fleet of Packard, Federal and Ford trucks; two Best and one ITolt "45s" for furrowing and hilling up: and a dozen small tractors for hauling cane to flume or track during the harvesting. There are also 200 mules, each named and carried on the time books. Hampshire hogs are run in the stab)le yards to clean up the grain. The mules are bedded with cane trash and the manure is taken to the fields each day and spread on the young cane. Essex and Ford automobiles are apparently the favorites at Makaweli. The plantation has its own dairy, located on a 23-acre rock pile bought from the government three years ago. This is the only fee-simple land it owns. Dr. A. R. Glaizyer, the veterinarian in charge, bewails the fates which have endowed his dairy with the greatest run of luck in the history of cattle breeding in these islands. Out of forty calves dropped in the last two-and-a-half years, thirty-three have been of the gentleman persuasion —and when you start off with a fine herd of pedigreed Holstein cows, the best milkers that money can buy, expecting to build up a herd of young stock-auwe! What are you going to do about it if there are no heifer calves? A $5000 "Forbes" bull with a pedigree a mile long heads the herd, and the sixteen milkers cost an average of $750 each. The dairy barn stands about 35 150 feet from the pali and all manure is run into the sea, so there are no flies. This is the only herd I have seen in H —lawaii not pesteredl to death lby horn-flies. It is a modern, sanitary dairy barn, thoroughly up to (ate. Separators, co)olers and] feed critters get their power from the detached engine of an old Cadillac. A Blizzard power cutter chops elephant. grass and pigeon pea rouighage, which is supplemented ly molasses and "'sure-milk". The (lairy has its own delivery system. Milk is sold to the Ilantation labor(ers at eight cents per quart a nd to the white employees at twelve cents. These prices put the dairy into the "welfare" class-a utility which yields invisible profits, but as Dr. Gla.izyer says, there is a jinx on this proposition of buildling up a, herd of goodl milkeris. It can't be (lone with nothing llt bull calves. Haw-aiilan Sugar Company is fully albreast of the times in thre matter of comm111unity welfare work. Its pridle is the "Community Honuse," albove the (oveernment road adjoining the Makaweli 1)lublic school groundls. This is a two-story combination of opera house, library, reading room, ball room and amusement hall, a genuine meet'n house where the plantation employes get together to get acqaiIntltedl andl have a goodl time. inlnniediately above it. is a 30() by 8100-feet, grasssed basebtall parkl where league gamnes are to be played in 1924. A grandlstaulnd to htold 8300 people, and a1 s-wiIming tfank, are to lbe built next siummer. Parking space for machines is lProvided on three sidles of the ball groundls. There are also basket-ball, volley-bafll and tennis courts. I was just one (lay too late to attendl a "Father and Sons" fifty-cent banquet given by the. employes, the dinner cooked and seirvedl by the students of the domnestic science course in the public schools. Every village has its moving Picture house, club house alndl basket-lball court. rule open air type of theatre with shed roof over the benclhes is used, andl tickefts are 1.5) and 20 cents. Revenue from pool tables, at three cents per ga-me, helps l)ay the cost of maintenance. There are restraurants atnd barber stihops in all villages. Time 28-bed hospital is modern with all of the standard equipment found in cities. X-ray machine, well fittedl surgery, dietary kitchen, laundry, is;olation wa-lrd, anld wolmen's warls for maternity cases. iDuring the first "fin" e1pidenic the hospital took came of 250 patients. Looking l-ack at it, Manager Ben 13Baldwin says he does not know how they (id it, but they came through with ais smiall a percentage of fatalities as alny hospital in Hawaii. The admni n i strati on buil(hing is a commiodlions two-story rei nforcted concrete office with 12 by 16 ft. built-in vault. Below are the general offices, with laboratories, and dranghting rooms above. And thein there is the cane, the real thing that all the rest of tie story is "woven about. I saw field after field of 11-109, that decrepit variety which a'Ilways walks on crutches vhere it Iorlers the roadsides, its bundle of blue sticks -piled like corded saplings against the restraiming barrier. 36 The interesting fact regarding Makaweli's stock of this variety is that it is all descended from two "flats" of germinated cuttings brought from the experiment station in 1908. They never bought one single bag of 1-109 seed from any other plantation. In seedling and progeny work Manager Baldwin only doffs his hat to one other competitor-Wailuku Sugar Company. Every luna and laborer on the property keeps his eyes peeled for new varieties, there being a standing schedule of cash rewards of $10, $5 and $2.50 for stools maturing in any field between December and April which appear to possess exceptional merit. These are inspected and tested, and if considerd promising, are propagated in different soils and sections. A field of five acres of Rose Bamboo expanded from one such stool with exceptionally "fat" sticks looks like a comer. Another variety which thus far has been letter than 11-109 in all characters including sucrose and purity is T1-431. The plantation now has three acres of this strain expanded from a single stool. They are going to throw out another seedling, 11-146, although it averages around ten tons of sugar per acre, because after thoroughly testing it for eight years they find it does not ratoon well. The average for the plantation, counting all cane varieties, is 7.45 tons sugar per acre. In general, Yellow Caledonia is best in poor soils; l)-1135 above the 700 -ft. level; and 1I-109 on the red soils below. D-1.135 costs three cents per ton more to harvest on account of its small sticks, but it is the most dependable variety ever grown in this district. The plant crop is always good and the ratoons (o not fall down in yields. There is somre Lahiaina and Badila as a part of every crop. MAUI lVailuku Nugar Colpany WATLUKJIK, MATTi, Aug. 22.-Wailuku Sugar C(ompiany is an old plantation formed by the comllination of three small properties formerly ilndependent of (ne another, rWaihee, Wailuku and Waikaplu, namied for three gorges debouching eastward fromn the West Mauil mountains. Its cane area is a long narrow strip of sea sand and alluvial wash sloping gently from the sharp declivities at the foot of the range. While some fields are but little above sea-level the average elevation of the bulk of the cane area is from 450 to 500 feet. The highest fields run up to 1100 feet in the valleys. This plantation is a "semni-arild irrigated property, its total water flow aggregating only between 35,000,000 and 40,000,000) gallons per day during the dry season. This is entirely a gravity supply, there being no pumps or wells. The reservoir capacity is limited, amounting all-told to only 100,000,000 gallons, an almost negligible reserve sufficient only for two days' irrigation. Thelope o and the nature of the terrain is such that it is practically impossible to impound the stormn and flood vwa ters. 37 The soil is opeii and porous so that insteadl of figuring 1, 000,000 gallons, per day per~ 10 ace of ica as is the pra1ctise on the redI iron-clay soils of Oahu,, Kta uai and the Central Maui plantationts, the requinremnents are miore like those at Koloa, or 1,000 00() gallons, for each 80-a cre unit. W~ith an avera~ge of ab)oit 4720 acres in crop, this area, would- call1 for a mninimium daily flow of 59,000,00() gallons., if optimumi use is to be madWe of irrigation water in growing sugar. Since Manager IL. 13. Penthall1ow has lbeell in chairge he ha's appreciably I lcreasedl the p~la ntation's water supply by tunnielhig f g.uai- by cementing the main (ditches to cut out seepage losses. Arlnc( iron flumies, substituted for opeiD earth (ditchies in the upper mnounfitain gorges har1ve, als"o add~e(l so0e111C mlions oif gallons (laily, "at the source,," the place where gains or losses have m1ost weig(ht andl intluence. ThiIs ci rcuninsta~nce that Wailuku- is ani irrignatedl p)1 antlat ion whiclh is often,short of a&ieqla~te water supply has su~pplied the miotive~ for all of the developmnent -andl improvement work of the plantation. The available cane a-rea cannot lbe extendedl there is lalbunlanlt stormnwtater', usually whene it is not re(liriied l, but 11 natual reservoir sites for stornig it, therefore plans for increa,,sing annumal sugar lpro(lllctioli have followed thIe, only possible line, that of creating ctane v-arieties Which will give m1ore sugar per acre. Coincident with the beginniing of this variety improvemnent which hias bween ctarrie(l fa-rther thaln on any other ple told when they comne to the encl of time row. In the seelling andl progeiiy fields there are also check rows of 11-109 Ialternating between the caines beiilg tesieol- the reason for this lbeing that this variety is the best thing in sight. All "imiproved" strains have got to equal Ihe check row-, otherwise out they go. Ani advantage in testing new varieties under field conditions as a part of the malin crop is that the snpposedlly "impnlroved" strains are shown no favors. rT'heve have got to take the stanme chances a1s the r1ank-anC111d-file. If the seed gets into a nut-gra,,ss pocket, it htas got to show what it cian do. If the water is short, the c(anie which is being tested must prove its mierit unader such adverse (conditions. One of the very best Pioneer stool selections was developed in that way, having beenlpickce(1 out of oIle (.01(1 191.7 raftoons which were a mass of nut grass. These field exper-irnelfts are planned to last over a series of years and more than one crop cycle. A 50-bag lot of one of time Waialuia seedlings of Lahaina pareintage is being planted today on the alluvial flats just makai of the village, in soil as btlack as the richest >Nelbra:lska prairies, alongside the 1-917 ratoon -electi ons jurst mentioned. In progeny planliting, one acre is expande-d to fifteen on time average, so that after the new strains are definitely proved it is not going to take very many years to re-work the entire cane area. All seedling work has a "joker" in it-that being the question of how the inew cantie is going to pan out on the ratoon croLps. It is impossible to say the first two season what any of these new canes are going to do, and selections maside from one crop alone are of little practical importancee. A man has got to live with his new varieties a long time to really know them. All except 200 acres above ahamaina village out of the 1500 acres planted for the 19295 crop is now in. the ground. The last field will be finished by next 70 week, making this the earliest crop in several years. The crop of 1924 is in wonderfully fine shape and is expected to go well over 30,000 tons. The heart of the plantation where water applied in satisfactory volume brings enormous returns extends eastward from a few miles beyond Kaanapali. Here lies the broad stretch of HIonokawai red dirt fields. The section gets some rain from trade wind showers, but even without rain makes better use of irrigation water than any like area in Hawaii. lere, virgin soils produce 80-ton cane with 30-day irrigations. No potash is required on these soils, which are so rich that proper fertilization is still a matter of proof. Pioneer is one of the few plantations in HIawaii where the fertilizer requirements of the growing cane are checked up at the mill. HIere, also, 1-1(09 is at its best. This variety is a "redl-irt cane", a thoroughbred if there ever was one, which responds immediately to intensive fertilization, cultivation, and irrigation as no other variety ever has. Nitrogen tests are being carried on to determine quantities required; and phosphoric acid experiments to determine the form, whether "super," "reverte(d," or raw rock are most suited to the needs of crop and soil-all experiments being followed up bly juice analyses at the mill. This is the "plant food" system of determining fertilizer requirements. When describing the variety experiments I forgot to mention a practical method of holding out select stools or seedlings. The expert goes through a patch of cane alnd chooses his seed-stools, marking them by tying a bright red string aroulnd the clump or patch that he wants left. The cutters can take everything else. Then, after the main crop is out of the way he can make further colmparisons and selections of the marked cane stools as they stand. Water being so all-important on the fields to make the cane grow, Pioneer has discontinued it for fluming. Instead, this plantation uses l)ortable track laid vertical to the main slope, with Holt caterpillar tractors behind the string of loaded cars to 'ease" them down to the main line and haul back the empties. This method works well on fields where the slope is as high as 900 feet to the mile. They use three Holt "45s" and one HIolt "60", stralddling the track. The 1923 crop was harvested this way in 160 days milling time, the "fleet" of four Ilolts delivering 400 loaded cane cars per day, or 1200 tons. The vertical laterals feed the main line along the beach. Only one-third of the 1923 crop was flumed, and only that portion where the water could be used over again for irrigation. A few new camps have been built this season, the type of laborers' quarters here being a high-ceilinged three-room and built-in kitchen, one-family house; and six-roomI dlouble-ell house for the single men, with built-in-bathroom and shower. Concrete wood-blurning stoves with second-hand boiler-tube stovepipes are supplied for cooking. A few of the camps have modern self-flushing sewer systems, like the "IH.. SP. A." standard except that there are no septic tanks. Pure mountain water from springs far up in the almost inaccessible gorges of the mountains back of Lahaina is piped to the camps for domestic supply. 71 I found the executive staff of Pioneer Mill Company a mIdest, reticent bunch of youngsters, always willing to concede that tilis particular sugar plantation is the best in IHawaii and that they are making better use of their resources, and are achieving results unequalled elsewhere. They mentioned these items of news in confidential vein. "Youth will be sexrved. Mill Superintendent Herbert Walker is away at the coast enjoying his vacation, so Chemist Pratt, George L. Keenley, heald bookkeeper, lan(d 1. Butler Smith, pump engineer, took me in hand to be sure that I didn't miss lanything. T hereby certify that the latter, with the single exception of Greene of Waipahu, is the wildest automobile driver in Iawaii. Both stick to tile middle of the road-with the throttle wide opeln-Ian(d Ilantation roads are lnot the blest. These plantation experts are wonderful drivers. The two largest pnumpling stations are lneallr the village-N"Waillee" towarlds the south and "Waikuli" on the Kafanapali side. Wainee is now designated the "Lahaina" station. Three pu1mps are dleliverinlg over 21 million gallons of:35-grain irrigation water from two suml)s fed bly ta battery of wells ldug about 30 feet below sea-level. The big steam pump is a composite 50()O. p. ellgine built on the plantation out of Worthington parts and a part of the o(ld engine wllichl operatedl a. cable car system in San Francisco '25 years ago. Three "B. & V." boilers with Greene economizer supply the power. This purmp raises S.,500,000 gallons daily to the 250-ft. level, at very low olpelrting cost. Alongside is a Cameron electric punmp which raises tllree millionl gallons 500 feet through a 5000-foot pipe line. It is operated by a 400 h. p. motor using hydro-electric power generated far up in the mountains. A Doble electric piump run by a 2)0 h.. p. motor lifts 10 million gallons daily to tlle 100-foot level from a. second lbattery" of 30-foot wells laboult.50 yards from the main station. At the Waiklli station, north of the mlill, t-wo Blraunsclhweig pump1 s oplerated with six Braunnschweig b)oilers, witll economizer anld sup)er-heater, all emplaced in 1900, are delivering 5,0((}00,0 gallons each at the 400-foot level. These pumps are a. GermIanl version of the Iiedler, like the latter in all important parts excep)t the automatic Riedler vaTlve. They are bettr looking, however, with locomotive finish and polished surfalces. That they are efficielt is indicated b1y their delivery of practically their rated capacity after clontinuous nine-months' operation for 23 years. The Brauilschweig boilers are long, low affairs with one big fine (lown the middle an(l return-flues toward the periphery. They have given good service all these years. Feed water hleated by the exhaust steam is delivered to the )boilers at 180 degrees without, or at from 210 to 220 degrees with the economizer working. A new steam turbine power plant is being installed at the old Kaanapali pumping station alout a mile east of that port, the reason for the choice of site being that there are already good wells and a big masonry-lined excavation for the machinery. There are also old railway tracks and sidings in place, making this location a very convenient one. 72 The installation is to comprise a steani-turbine 150( kilowatt generator driven by a battery of Babcock & Wilcox boilers. M~ain distribution lines will carry the "juice" wheriever it is needed. An electric Pump which lifts 5,000,000 gallons 6GS feet-enough water to irrilgate 8300 acres of cane jnst above Kaanapali-is now at work. The newest pumping station at H1onokawai went into action six days ago, on August 23. An electric 400 hi. p. pump raises 5,000,000 gallons to the 300 -foot level. This being the red-dirt district where a little water goes a long way, this new.5,000,000-gallon dlaily supply will. improve the growing conditions of 600 to 700 acres of cane. All of the Pionieer lumllps are operatel at very low cost, Smith said. The four hydro-electric iower pIplants prodllce a conbined minimum of about 500 kilowatts during the night aiird around 400 kilowatts in the laytime during the driest summner months, a iid with their aggregate capacity under full ditches.about 11000 kilowlatts. They are fuel-savers and work in nicely to cut down oil consumptIon. Ka Iauapali is as safe an open roaltsteadl as there is in these islands, the se.a1s seldom lbeing too ron gh to work freight. Carl 1F'. Turne, port captain, an ol01 deep-sea sailor, is in charge of the sugar shipping facilities. The sugar warehouse is one of the largest, having -a capacity of 14,000 tons. There are ho couveyors, floor stackers only being used. At the whiarf, double carloads of sugar are run on to tipped elevated tracks where meii shove the bags off into chutes enplrtying into lighters moored four feet from the whbarf. The company has seven lighters and a Pigu, and loads ships mnoooret l in deep water 500 feet from the wharf at the average rate of I00) tons ipr dltay. There is a 2500-ton miolasses tanik and a big fuel-oil tank ait flie landing. The wairehouse is ol0( anld not in the best of repair, because the company,expects to labtandon its Kaanapali landing as so011 as the Malta wharf is comnpleted l.y the botraird of harbor commissioners,. Manager Burns told nie that his company, as a, matter of pllliic policy and self-interest, will make full use of Mala just as soon as the Territory completes this important project. James Wakefield said todlay that the Mala project is only half completed, the portion now in placel being merely the approach to modern freight warehouses which must lbe lbuilt. The board is going to station an engineer at Mala to make exact observations as to currents aiid tides for perhfapis a, year before filial (lecision as to the exact location of the main lodyv of the wharf. When this exact data has been collected, and tie steanishIdp conlpanuies which are to use the wharf have been satistied as to tlhe safetv oif their vcssels moored alongside, the legislature will be asked for aiotier half-million dollar aTppropr ation for theain albodyv of the wharf and the, sugyar warehouses. Pioneer Mill Comupany will tlen (isinantle its Kiianapalli landing an(l erect niew warehouses nearer the mill. It is a big alt~v~zivtage to be able to put freight directly aboard ship instead of lightering it. The Baldwin 1Packers' pineapple shipments are handled by Pioneer Mfill Company at Kaanllapali, and their trains deliver the fresh fruit at tie cannery. 73 A permanelt track extendling in a strai'ght lille from the pileapp)le fields downi to Pioneer's main belt roadl, delivers the fruit from the upper levels, with tractors behind the trainls to brake the load, in the same way that the sugar company harvests its cane. The mill is an old one which has been rebulilt throughout, piecemeal, until it is now one of the best in Hawaii. Pratt acknowledges that it is "tlhe best balanced factory in Hawaii,' but I will step aside and( let the chemists and factory experts fight their own battle for supremacy in this ieldl. They took the last crop off in I((} (1vdas, and are allowiln leeway of seven days longer for the 1924 crop, whllill is to te over ()\ 0,000 tons. The factory has more evaporator surface than atiny oilier iln llawaii, or somletlhing over 26,000 squaire feet. They burned no oil while grinding the main crop, "dried off with ba gasse, and1 sold $7500 (worth of extra power during tlie Sea(sonl. Pioneer mill practice differs from tlhat- of ot(ler plantaltions in tlhat the mill makes three grades of shipping sugars, tlhe two lo]wer grades!being washedl to bring them up to stalndard. Tlley cleanl (ut t le sugar house twice in every twenty-four hours. They claim to be tle only mill in tlie islands wlich lma llalains chemical control of the fields through juice i analyses for potas)( a ld l(l l(splhoric acid in order to cut down the fertilizer bill. Another difference, which they asked( me not(t to say anything about, is that they use more different kinds an(d mlakes of b1ilers tli;a any other mill.. There are at least fourl styles, of ll11 Aviintage(s. During 1'923 the mill averaged 75 tons of canell per hour for tli e whole crop,, its record going up to 99 tons per lhour, or 1!)721 t(ns per twenty-four-hour day,, and considering that they are working with 72-ic('1h rollers, they are quite, chesty about it. Extractiton a4tverage'd 97.90 for tIlie iwhole crop, with 26 per cent average dilution( thleir waste molalsses a:ver;aged (i pIurity 11and,:0 sucrose; and as the last Iro(,cess before closilng (lownl thley got a finll 146 tons of shipping sugnars out o(f their mo(lasses tlankls. As I sail before, these younlgsters at I'ionleer ar'e Imodest a]d(1 retiring, and never claimr more than ever ytlhing in sighlt. The mill equipment conlsists of electrlic-dri ve K1rajew-sky crushler and Searby shredder, and five three-roller mills, with sepl)aratei (Corliss engines driving the first two:and last three. Adjoiningl tlie mill is the reinforced concrete nmachine shop, sadly under-equipped, but there is a good boiler Ilant and electrical repair shop. The co(mpany makes all its ow l pipe lines. There is storage siding for 450 loaded cane cars, or enough to keep well ahead of mill capacity. A part of their grinding record is certainly due to the excellent transportation system. Other units include a reinforced concrete garage of novel design, the roof and roof trusses being concrete with a six-foot slab overhang. This was intended for storage but is being used mainly for repairs. There is a round-house with stalls for the company's six locomotives; well equipped planing mill; car shops where the company builds its own cane cars and other rolling stock except steel flats; rock crusher; and con 74 crete yards where they mould stoves, kitchen sinks, sewer pipe and telephone poles. For transportation the company has a fleet of Pierce-Arrow two-and-a-half ton trucks; and Dodge automobiles, this make of car being considered just as "fool-proof" as a Ford and a good deal better built. The cheaper cars will not stand up to the work put upon them by Pioneer's none too good plantation roads. Roads are one of the items on the company's construction program but as those now in existence are fairly passable, new ones will have to wait. HAWAII IIiLO, HIAWAII, September 27.-Once again I am fortunate in making a sea trip to Hlawaii. I have sailed these seas many times and it is always with new pleasure and new wonder. Last night the full Inoon climbed out of the middle of a gold-rimmed cloud bank which turned out to be the top of the east Molokai mountains. When morning came the Mauna Kea was just abreast of the Waipio, the great gorge which flows from the mysterious shadows of the Kohala pali into the cave of the shark-god, at the sea. Then MaIuna Kea awoke, one long snow bank in the shelter of its northernmost peak waving like a wisp of gray hair in the half light of the dawn. Perhaps the illusion of motion came from the weaving of our ship as the long North Pacific swells came rolling on. But I swear I saw that snow bank floating in the wind. It has been there all this summer. Opposite IIonokaa the cliffs of the Waipio turned a vivid rose and the first beams of sunlight swept the very tip-top of the grand old dead volcano. An ir.on-wood fringe borders the cliffs for miles; tongues of spray from the hungry breakers lick half-way up the pali; and Mauna Kea suddenly puts on a liew clean collar of silvery clouds. Five cinder cones march across the sky-line at his summit. It must be cold up there. Young cane, black in the receding distance; vivid yellow cane, ripening for the coming harvest; trash tires at Paauhau; and the solid basalt of Kukuihaele changes to a pali of coursed rubble towards Paauilo. White camps with brilliant red roofs; lauhala trees clear down to the water's edge; gray camps with brown roofs; green camps with black roofs, as orderly as a brood of ducklings; past Laupahoehoe, lantana with diagonal stream lines, interesting and curious; and, just before the mountain puts on its petticoat of gray clouds, an intriguing round targe with concentric rings-trees, probably, encircling some cinder cone-stands out on Mauna Kea's waistline. At Papaaloa another flock of camp cottages that must have come from two settings, green ones resting on the edge of the pali and a flock of younger, white ones beyond; a concrete stack which looks forlorn and lonesome; more white villages; a mill on the cliff edge which is apparently only kept from sliding into the sea by one long scantling 75 Oh, this trip to Hilo is very wonderful! I wonder that more do not make it, just to get acquainted with Hawaii. It is like going to a foreign land, where, after days or weeks out of sight of anybody, the captain presses a button and a new country rises in the foreground. Hilo has a better climate than Honoluli. It is more livable. The air is soft and clean. It comes in fresh every morning washed by leagues of ocean. There is a wider temperature range between day and night. By all rights it ought to be the best home city. I like Hilo, and I believe that some day it will he properly discoveredl-and come into its own. Pcpcck(o Sugar Company The government sometimes takes cognizance of the work of men who create new lands, giving a rent-free period as partial reward, or, where men establish new industries, releasing them from the payment of taxes for a period of years. If the theory is correct, then those who permanently increase the fertility of their fields should also be rewarded by the state. They are. If they are growing cane, pineapples, coffee or any other known pIrofitable crop the government joyously welcomes improvements of this nature and piles on more taxe's, so that it can be truthfully said that vwhile the government is not entirely logical it is grateful. This homily on things in general is prefatory to the story of Pepeekeo Sugar Company where Manager James Webster has increased the average yield of sugar from 3.1 tons per acre to 4.6 tons within 15 years, and during that period has stuck to one cane variety. This gain in )pro(duction is attributed to only one factor, the deepening and permalnent implrovement in the quality of top soils through good farming. Through all these years Webster has continued to pin) his faith to Yellow Caledonia, a variety which is being thrown out by many other planters on the ground of its having become unreliable. There is practically nlothing else at Pepeekeo, a few acres of D-1135>, some Yellow Tip on the extreme mauka fields, a few trial acres of Badila and plot experiments with Shamel stools. These, however, are a very small proportion of the total cane area. Ninety per cent of the commercial cane is straight unadulteatrate Yellow Caledonia. Another feature of practice on this plantation is the indefinite ratooning of all fields. The veteran, who claims to be the youngest manager iln Hawaii, is not at all enthusiastic over having this year put in the largest acreage of plant cane he has ever set out in any one season, something over 800 acres. He confided to me that he does not like "plant" cane. There is too much chance about it, and the cost of production is always high. Given a field of cane already full grown, well rooted, steady in its habits, mature-there is no reason why this should be uprooted and replanted after any given number of crops merely in accordance with a rotation schedule. 76 Webster has taken off sixth and seventh ratoons yielding around fortyfive tons per acre and declares himself entirely satisfied with these results, although during the 1923 harvest he cut one field of ratoons which averaged fifty-nine and one-half tons. He is kanalua about plant cane. It might do as well, and again it might not. Ratoons he is sure of. It is self-evident that a plantation manager who is accustomed to carrying one field of cane along for twelve to eighteen years without replowing and changing the combination by planting new varieties or selected seed cannot blame his steady increase in sugar yields oin anybody but himself. Webster was a farmer back in Scotland and brought his inherited farm lore with him when he emigrated to Hawaii. HIe believes in good husbandry, and practises what he preaches. It is over fifteen years since there has been a trash fire on Pepeekeo. Nothing in the way of vegetation that will rot is ever burned. It is turned under to make new soil. Then, too, Pepeekeo's manager believes in liming. ITe has limed a large percentage of the cane lands at the rate of thirty to thirty-three barrels per acre and in 1914 spread Waianae coral sand over the entire plantation at the rate of four tons per acre. This sand was loaded on the 0. R. & L. Co.'s cars from the sand hills beyond Waianae, then taken aboard the Inter-Island freighters at the railroad wharf, Honolulu, transferred to the Hawaii Consolidated Railway Company's cars at Kuhio wharf, Hilo, taken to Pepeekeo and there was bagged and hauled into the fields by mule power. So it happens that Waianae has helped Pepeekeo make profits. The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company's freight contract that year called for delivering 50,000 tons of coral sand. The whole of this section of country, averaging ten miles north of IIilo in the direction of IIamakua, consists of clay beds a dozen feet in depth overlying solid basalt lava. Where there are deep cuts it looks as though the soil extends clear to bedrock, but as a matter of fact the field soil suitable for crop production is very shallow. Webster found deep plowing which brought the sour subsoil to the top injurlious and yet the cane soils when he came to the plantation nineteen years ago were entirely too shallow to grow satisfactory crops. The problem was to deepen the furrows and make a surface blanket of rich top soil thick enough to grow good crops. This change in soil depth has been brought about by shaving the subsoil say half an inch every time fields were plowed or cane stubble cultivated. That half inch of bright red, acid, poisonous, clay subsoil brought up from below could be taken care of naturally in the course of one cropping season, whereas had lie plowed his lands twenty-four to thirty inches deep at the very beginning it is probable there would have been no crop at all for several seasons. It takes a certain amount of Scotch pertinacity to tackle a problem of this sort and carry it through. With ten feet of potential soil to draw on beneath the fertile top layer it is not every one who would have the patience to deepen the top soil only half an inch a year. 77 That seems to me to be the outstanding feature about this small plantation, the fact that in fifteen years its manager has increased his yields fifty per cent by good farming, without disturbing the crop growing on the land in the meantime. In that same period he has deepened the top soil, which is all that any farmer has to work with, from six to eight inclies; and has entirely renovated it. Formerly of granular texture and reddish in color, the plow land is now smooth.and soft, with a distinctly brownish cast. The fields are in good tilth, whether their crop is plant cane or ratoons, and the rotting of successive weed and trash blankets has put more leaf humus into the soil. The double liming with coral sand and quicklime has taken care of the natural acidity. It all sounds perfectly simple, but it has taken one man a working lifetime to bring it about. To be mathematically exact, this plantation owns 3214 acres of cane lands and leases 49 acres. In addition there is a varying area of homestead lands tributary to it, bringing the average yearly crop up to from 1900 to 1950 acres. There isn't an acre of waste land in the cultivation area, ibut the plantation owns a half-mile stretch of forest and mountain pa