COFFEE.
The most promising of all the Island products, outside of sugar, is
coffee. No finer coffee in the world is produced than that of the
Hawaiian Islands. It requires care and does not produce a crop until the
third year, but it remains till the fifth year to make a proper
realization upon the investment. It is evidently necessary to give a
very full description of the coffee plant and its method of culture to
assure intending immigrants of what is before them.
Coffee is a shrub belonging to the family of the Rubiaceae. Botanists
divide it into many species, but it can be practically divided into two
sections, Arabian coffee and Liberian coffee, or in point of fact,
Asiatic and African. In the Hawaiian Islands coffee grows best between
500 and 2,000 feet above the sea level, though there are cases in which
it has done well close to the sea. It requires a loose porous soil and
does not thrive well in heavy clayey ground which holds much water. Of
such heavy land there is very little in the Hawaiian Islands. The soil
is generally very porous.
It is very evident that coffee will thrive and give good results in
varying conditions of soil and degrees of heat. In these Islands it grows
and produces from very nearly at the sea level to the elevation of 2,600
feet. The highest elevation of bearing coffee, known here, is twenty-five
miles from the town of Hilo and in the celebrated Olaa district.
[Illustration: EWA MILL.]
[Illustration: VALLEY SCENE, HAWAII.]
With such a range it is evident that, in a tropical climate, the
cultivation of coffee presents greater opportunities for an investor
than other tropical products.
For years it was thought that coffee would only grow to advantage in the
Kona district of Hawaii. Practical experiment has shown that it can be
grown with success in almost any part of the Islands.
The opening up of the Olaa portion of the Puna district, by a well
macadamized road leading from Hilo to the Volcano, may be regarded as
the commencement of the coffee industry on a large scale on the Hawaiian
Islands. There are now over fifty plantations where six years ago there
was nothing but tangled and dense forest. The Olaa land is Government
property and can be acquired under the land law. There are still 10,000
acres not taken up. The location is very desirable as there is direct
communication with Hilo by an excellent road and the crop can be readily
taken to the shipping point. Indeed it can not be long before a railroad
will be built; when this takes place a far larger extent of land will be
available for coffee growing in this section of the country. The soil in
the Olaa district is deep and wonderfully prolific.
Other portions of Puna also present many fertile lands, and coffee
plantations in those parts are coming to the front showing excellent
results. A considerable number of investors have opened up coffee
plantations in them, all of which are doing excellently. These
plantations, to the knowledge of the writer are, many of them, carried
on out of the savings made by workers in Honolulu, who are thus
preparing for themselves a provision for their early middle age. On the
Island of Hawaii are the great coffee districts of Olaa, Puna, Kona and
Hamakua, in each of which thriving coffee plantations are established,
while tens of thousands of acres of the very finest lands are yet
undisturbed. Government lands in these districts are being opened up for
settlement as fast as circumstances will permit.
On the Island of Maui there is a large area of splendid coffee lands.
The extensive land of Keanae belonging to the Government will be opened
for settlement as soon as the preliminary work of surveying is completed.
On the Island of Molokai the industry is making progress and there are
several plantations along the leeward valleys.
So also on the Island of Oahu there is much good coffee land, which is
being experimented upon, and considerable capital invested in the
undertaking.
As the case now stands for the investor, land can be obtained for coffee
growing in:--
ISLAND OF HAWAII.
North and South Kona,
Hilo,
Puna, including Olaa,
Hamakua.
ISLAND OF MAUI.
Keanae,
Nahiku,
Lahaina,
Kaupo.
ISLAND OF MOLOKAI.
ISLAND OF OAHU.
ISLAND OF KAUAI.
In addition to the large tracts of Government lands on Hawaii and Maui,
there are many fine tracts of first-class coffee lands owned or
controlled by private parties. It is the policy of the Government to
encourage the settlement of its lands by small farmers. Hence the amount
of land, granted to one party or that one party can take up, while amply
sufficient to enable one person or family, with honest endeavor, to
acquire an independence, is not large enough to offer inducements for
the employment of large amounts of capital.
That areas of land, for the establishment of large coffee plantations,
can be acquired is reasonably certain as large owners are evincing a
disposition to sell and lease their lands.
There is no agricultural investment that offers better opportunities for
the profitable employment of capital, than a well managed coffee estate.