not always done. There is no danger of frost, as in
Louisiana, and cane is planted in some part of the islands in almost
every month of the year. In Lahaina it matures in from fourteen to sixteen
months; in some districts it requires eighteen months; and at greater
altitudes even two years.

But under all the varying circumstances, whether it is irrigated or not,
whether it grows on bottoms or on hill slopes, in dry or in damp regions,
everywhere the cane seems to thrive, and undoubtedly it is the one product
of the islands which succeeds. A worm, which pierces the cane near the
ground and eats out the pith, has of late, I am told, done some damage,
and in some parts the rat has proved troublesome. But these evils do not
anywhere endanger or ruin the crop, as the blight has ruined the coffee
culture and discouraged other agricultural ventures. The sugar product
of the islands has constantly increased. In 1860 they exported 1,444,271
pounds of sugar; in 1864, 10,414,441 pounds; in 1868, 18,312,926 pounds;
and in 1871, 21,760,773 pounds of sugar.

What is remarkable is that, with this rapid increase in the production
of sugar, you hear that the business is unprosperous; and if to this you
reply that planters, like farmers, are hard to satisfy, they show you that
the greater number of the plantations have at some time been sold by the
sheriff, some of them more than once, and that, in fact, only six or seven
are to-day in the hands of their founders.

I do not doubt that there has been bad management on many plantations,
and that this accounts in part for these failures, by which many hundred
thousand dollars have been lost. For the advantages of the sugar planter
on these islands are very decided. He has not only, as I showed you above,
a favorable climate and an extraordinarily fertile soil, but he has
a laboring population, perhaps the best, the most easily managed, the
kindliest, and--so far as habits affect the steadiness and usefulness
of the laborer--the least vicious in the world. He does not have to pay
exorbitant wages; he is not embarrassed to feed or house them, for food
is so abundant and cheap that economy in its distribution is of no moment;
and the Hawaiian is very cheaply housed.

But bad management by no means accounts for all the non-success. There are
some natural disadvantages serious enough to be taken into the account.
In the first place, you must understand that the rain-fall varies
extraordinar