se some seventeen
are constantly plying from port to port, affording weekly communication
with the capital. The regular passenger steamers are well fitted with
cabins, have electric bells and electric lights and all modern
accommodations.

POSTAL MATTERS.

There is a regular postal system, and on the arrival of a steamer at
any main point, mail carriers at once start out to distribute the
mail through the district. The Hawaiian Islands belong to the Postal
Union, and money orders can be obtained to the United States, Canada,
Great Britain, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Hong Kong and Colony of Victoria, as well as local orders
between the Islands.

CHAPTER II.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES.

The mainstay of the Hawaiian Islands has, for the last thirty-five
years, been the sugar industry. From this source a large amount of
wealth has been accumulated. But the sugar industry requires large
capital for expensive machinery, and has never proved remunerative to
small investors. An attempt has been made at profit-sharing and has met
with some success, the small farmer cultivating and the capitalist
grinding at a central mill. Of late years, moreover, the small farmer
has been steadily developing in the Hawaiian Islands and attention has
been given to other products than sugar.

Rice, neither the European nor the American can cultivate as laborers.
It requires working in marshy land, and though on the Islands it yields
two crops a year, none but the Chinaman can raise it successfully. A
dry-land or mountain rice has been introduced, which will be treated
under the head of Agricultural possibilities.

The main staple after sugar and rice is coffee. Of this hundreds of
thousands of trees have been planted out within the last five years.
This is essentially the crop of the future and bids fair to become as
important a staple as sugar. Coffee does not require the amount of
capital that sugar does, and it can be worked remuneratively upon a
small area. It is estimated that at the end of the fourth year the
return from a 75-acre coffee plantation will much more than pay the
running expenses, while from that time on a return of from eight to ten
thousand dollars per annum may be realized.

On page 32 will be found an estimate of the cost of establishing a
75-acre coffee plantation from the first to the seventh year.

Fruits can also be cultivated to advantage. At present the banana trad