In Wyllie’s “Notes” on the islands, published in the “Friend,” December, 1844, the quantity of sugar exported from the island of Kauai is estimated at about 200 tons, and the molasses at 20,000 gallons. Hilo, in the same year, exported 42 tons of sugar. Maui had, at that time, two mills, but the amount of sugar produced is not reported. In 1851, D. M. Weston, then manager of what is now the Honolulu Iron Works, invented the first centrifugal machine for drying sugar, and this machine was installed on the East Maui plantation in the same year. This, it is claimed, was the first centrifugal to be used for the purpose anywhere. Prominent among the early planters are the names of Stephen Reynolds, William French, Ladd & company, Dr. R. W. Wood, L. L. Torbert, W. H. Rice, and later on S. L. Austin, A. H. Spencer and Captain Makee. In the year 1854 or 1855, Captain Edwards of the American whaler _George Washington_ brought from Tahiti two varieties of cane, one known as Cuban and the other as Lahaina. The latter proved to be profitable to raise and fifteen or sixteen years later began to displace other species throughout the islands. Since then its popularity continued to increase and up to twenty years ago it was the variety most in favor on all Hawaiian plantations. Twelve varieties of cane were imported from Queensland, Australia, in 1880, but of these only one—the Rose Bamboo—compared with the Lahaina in productiveness, and that only in high altitudes. In 1898 Lahaina and Rose Bamboo seemed to have outlived their usefulness on the Hamakua coast of the island of Hawaii, and while they continued to give excellent results in the low, sheltered valleys, it became evident that they could not be profitably grown on the uplands. The yields in the Hamakua region were becoming smaller each year and the plantation owners had to seek a new variety. A cane known as Yellow Caledonia[41] solved the difficulty and wonderful crops of it have been raised uninterruptedly in that section ever since. In 1856 no fertilizers were used and practically nothing was known of irrigation. The average yield of sugar at that time was one ton per acre. The extraction of sugar from the cane was less than 50 per cent, while today in the best mills it exceeds 98 per cent and the average result from all Hawaiian factories shows over 90 per cent. The industry struggled along under severe handicaps and discouraging circumstances until 1857, when the number of plantations on the islands had dwindled down to five: Koloa and Lihue on Kauai, the East Maui and the Brewer on Maui and a Chinese outfit near Hilo, Hawaii. In 1858-59 steam was adopted as the motive power in the mills; wooden mills were superseded by those built of iron and in 1861 the first vacuum pans were introduced. The same year saw the number of plantations increase to twenty-two, nine of which employed steam for the grinding of the cane.