The Hawaiian Islands: Their Resources, Agricultural, Commercial and FinancialHawaii. Department of Foreign Affairs
History
The Hawaiian Islands: Their Resources, Agricultural, Commercial and Financial
Hawaii. Department of Foreign Affairs
Hawaii; Hawaii -- Economic conditions
The guava, which grows wild, can also be put up to profit, for the
manufacture of guava jelly. It has never been entered upon on a large
scale, but to the thrifty farmer it would add a convenient slice to his
income, just as the juice of the maple adds an increase to the farmer of
the Eastern States. Well made guava jelly will find a market anywhere.
In England it is regarded as a great delicacy, being imported from the
West India Islands. Besides the guava there are other fruits which can
be put up to commercial profit, notably the poha or Cape gooseberry
(Physalis Edulis). This has been successfully made into jams and jelly,
which command an extensive local sale and should find their way into
larger markets.
In point of fact, outside the great industries of sugar, coffee and
rice, there is a good field for many minor industries which can be
carried on with profit by those who know what work is, and are willing
to put their shoulders to the wheel.
In the Hawaiian Islands a simple life can be lived, and entering
gradually upon the coffee industry, a good competence can be obtained
long before such could be realized by the agriculturalist elsewhere.
However, it is useless to come to the Islands without the necessary
capital to develop the land that can be obtained.
Between arriving and the time that the crops begin to give returns there
is a period where the living must be close, and cash must be paid out
for the necessary improvements. The land is here, the climate is here;
it only requires brains, a small capital and energy to realize such
comfort and independence as can not be realized in old countries, in
one-fourth of the time.
CHAPTER III.
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.
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