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
o