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.

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:—

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.