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August 14, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sugar/Forestry Connection

The early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands.

As a later economic entity, sugar gradually replaced sandalwood and whaling in the mid‐19th century and became the principal industry in the islands, until it was succeeded by the visitor industry in 1960.

Hawaiʻi had the basic natural resources needed to grow sugar: land, sun and water. Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

Sugar‐cane farming gained this prestige without great difficulty because sugar cane soon proved to be the only available crop that could be grown profitably under the severe conditions imposed upon plants grown on the lands which were available for cultivation. (HSPA 1947)

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885; and Filipinos 1905. Several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places on the globe. Sugar changed the social fabric of Hawai‘i.

That is not the only influence that sugar production had in the Islands.

Interestingly, it was the sugar growers, significant users of Hawai‘i’s water resources, who led the forest reserve protection movement.

We are fortunate that a little over 100-years ago some forward thinkers had the good sense to set aside Hawai‘i’s forested lands and protected our forest watersheds under the State’s Forest Reserve system. While I was at DLNR, we oversaw these nearly 1-million acres of mauka lands.

The link between tree-planting and the sugar planters can be seen particularly clearly in the career of Harold Lyon, who arrived in Hawai‘i in 1907 as a plant pathologist in the employ of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA).

Diseases of sugar cane occupied Lyon’s efforts for several years, but his purview gradually broadened to include a variety of problems relating to Hawaiian agriculture, including deforestation. (Woodcock)

Lyon was a strong voice for forests. In an early report, he discussed the water situation on O‘ahu, the insufficient supplies of water available for agriculture, and the role of the forested high-elevation areas of the windward Ko‘olau in recharging the island’s aquifer.

He described the water budget and the action of forested watersheds in slowing the rate of runoff and increasing infiltration and flow of water to groundwater. (Woodcock)

It was evident to Lyon and others that deforestation was increasing runoff – water that was essentially lost to agriculture, since the topography of the islands, with their many short streams, makes impoundment, and in many cases diversion, impractical.

As evidence for the water-conserving role of vegetation, Lyon noted the drying out of many streams that had previously been more continuously flowing, an observation that by this time had been made repeatedly.

Lyon emphasized that the problem was not just increased demand for water but also the conditions determining supply – ‘‘The candle is burning at both ends and we only fan the flames’’ – and argued that resources should be committed to reforest the watersheds with ‘‘healthy, water-conserving forest’’. (Woodcock)

Neglect of the islands’ forests would be ‘‘suicidal,’’ for ‘‘everything fails with the failure of our water supply’’. (Lyon; Woodcock)

After more than a century of massive forest loss and destruction, the Territory of Hawai‘i acknowledged that preservation of the forest was vital to the future economic prosperity of the Islands.

Urged by sugarcane growers and government foresters concerned about the vanishing woodlands, the forest reserve system became the basis for the largest public-private partnership in the history of the Islands. (Last Stand)

On May 13, 1903, the Territory of Hawaiʻi, with the backing of the Hawaiʻi Sugar Planters’ Association, established the Board of Commissioners of Agriculture and Forestry. (HDOA) The next year, Ralph Sheldon Hosmer became the first Superintendent of Forestry in the Islands.

The forest reserves were useful for two primary purposes: water production for the Territory’s agricultural industries, and timber production to meet the growing demand for wood products. The forest reserve system should not lead to “the locking up from economic use of a certain forest area.” (Hosmer)

Even in critical watersheds the harvesting of old trees “is a positive advantage, in that it gives the young trees a chance to grow, while at the same time producing a profit from the forests”. (LRB)

A main concern was finding an alternative to importing redwood and Douglas-fir from California for construction timbers. In 1904 the government nursery was asked to grow timber tree species instead of its usual ornamental, flowering trees (pines, cypress, cedar and Douglas fir.) (Anderson)

“As an influential board member on the Agriculture and Forestry Commission, Harold Lyon succeeded in persuading the Territorial Commission to import seed of a vast number of alien tree species. … nearly 1,000 alien species were outplanted in Hawaiʻi forest reserves.” (Mueller-Dombois)

Various trees and plants were imported from diverse areas of the world including Madagascar, Australia, India, Brazil, the Malay states, China, the Philippines, southern Europe, the East Indies, the West Indies, New Zealand, Central America and South Africa.

Trees that successfully survived the Mānoa Valley soil conditions and promoted water conservation were then widely planted throughout the arboretum

Eucalyptus species, silk oak, paperbark and ironwood were the most frequently planted trees due to their fast growth and their resistance to adverse environmental conditions. However, these very qualities, as well as their ability to seed profusely, would lead to some species such as tropical ash and albizia. (Iwashita)

The number of trees planted rose to many millions by the 1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was available for planting. From 1935 to 1941, with the help of the CCC, an average of close to two-million trees were planted per year in the forest reserves.

Lyon envisioned the plantations as a buffer zone that would be established between the remaining native forests and the lower-elevation agricultural lands to protect the native forests and perform the functions (maintaining input of water to aquifers.)

In his 1949 annual report to the HSPA entitled, ‘What is to be the fate of the arboretum?,’ Lyon declared the Mānoa Arboretum’s mission to test new plant introductions to be essentially complete; he believed that the HSPA should not remain the arboretum’s custodian.

On July 1, 1953, HSPA conveyed the Mānoa Arboretum to the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaiʻi. The regents were individually entrusted with the fiduciary duty of maintaining the arboretum. In 1962, the Board of Regents transferred the arboretum to the University of Hawaiʻi.

Dr. Lyon remained with the arboretum as its first director under the regents’ and university’s stewardship. After Dr. Lyon’s death in 1957, an advisory committee directed the arboretum until 1961, when Dr. George Gillette assumed the directorship on a part-time basis.

When Dr. Lyon died, the Board of Regents renamed the facility the Harold L Lyon Arboretum (Lyon Arboretum) in honor of the man so closely associated with its growth and fruition.

© 2022 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, General, Place Names, Prominent People Tagged With: Foresty, Forest Reserve, HSPA, Lyon Arboretum, Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, Sugar, Harold Lyon

January 24, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Frederick Arthur Godfrey Muir

“One of the outstanding results of the great commercial and agricultural developments of the past century has been the enormous increase of insect pests.”

“Some of these pests have been distributed by commerce and many of them have become great pests only after leaving their home country.”

“In 1900, the sugar cane industry of the Islands began to be seriously checked by a very small insect known as the sugar-cane leafhopper which somehow had become established from Australia a few years earlier.” (Timberlake)

“This insect is extremely prolific and when multiplying unchecked it increases to such an extent that the sugar cane is badly stunted and finally killed. The adults migrate especially at night from one field to another, flying generally from the older cane to younger fields.”

“By 1904 the situation had become extremely bad and the whole industry was suffering enormous losses and was threatened with entire destruction by this insect. There seemed to be no practical· means of combating it”. (Timberlake)

As an example, the Big Island’s Pahala Plantation harvested 18,888 tons of sugar in 1903, but only 1,620 tons in 1905 and 826 tons in 1906. (Tucker)

Dr. Frederick AG Muir began this work for the Experiment Station of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association in September, 1905. This was when the sugar cane leafhopper was still a serious pest in Hawai‘i. (Swezey)

Before coming to Hawai‘i, Muir was employed in various parts of Africa, first as engineer and electrician and later as entomologist, having been connected with Eckstein group of gold mines in Johannesberg. (Nellist)

Frederick Muir (an entomologist with HSPA – at the time the only entomological research institution in Hawai‘i), began a long search to find and introduce natural enemies, seeking biological control as a method of controlling insect pests. (Swezey)

He was sent out to the tropical areas of the South Pacific, Australia, and the Melanesian Archipelago to search for potential biological control agents for sugar cane pests. (Evenhuis)

In a magazine article published in 1912, a newspaper man asked Mr. Muir, “Were you ever in danger of losing your life?” Muir was a small, mild-looking man with the air of a college professor, in spite of the outdoor color on his face and hands. He seemed much embarrassed by the question.

“Oh, no,” he said with a sharp English accent that ten years knocking about in the tropics had not altered. “You see, I have a theory that a man can go anywhere safely as long as he respects the point of view of the inhabitants, whether they be man or animals.” (Easton)

On one expedition, “he fell ill of typhoid fever and lay helpless in the hospital for five weeks. His precious insects were almost continually in his mind, be he was too ill to care for them”. (Washington Herald, Oct 11, 1914)

He was instrumental in finding and bringing to the Territory numerous parasites to counteract the ravages of the leaf-hopper, borer beetle, and anomala beetle, thus saving the industry an immense amount of money if not from destruction. He has published a number of monographs on leafhoppers, beetles and other entomological subjects.

“(H)e considered (the) isolated oceanic (Hawaiian) islands to which during a tremendously long time the flotsam and jetsam of ocean drift had brought a few forms of vegetable and animal life from which have since been evolved the numerous species that in a few tribes only now characterize its flora and fauna.”

“It is noteworthy that in this evolution no degree of adaptation is exhibited, species have gone on forming regardless of adaptation. The peculiar simplicity of the biological conditions with known factors make these islands the finest center for the study of evolution”.

“(I)ntroduced insects, from the absence of their parasites, are liable to play an important role. As an example, a leaf hopper damaged the sugar crop $5,000,000 in a year; but the introduction of an egg parasite from Fiji reduced this to $15,000.”

“The absence of secondary parasites has caused such introductions of parasites to be attended with unusual success.” (Proceedings of NY Entomological Society, Nov 26, 1917)

Muir was born in London on April 24, 1873, the son of Alexander Muir of Scotland and Annie Marie (Lempriere) Muir, of Jersey. His early education was obtained in England.

“On October 31, 1917, Dr. Muir left for England to engage in war service for his native country in the trying days of the World War. He returned to Honolulu a year later on October 28, 1918.”

“In the meantime he had married Margaret Annie Sharp on April 9, 1918, the daughter of Dr. David Sharp (another entomologist).” (Swezey)

Dr. Muir’s health had been undermined by so much time spent in unhealthful tropical jungles, etc., and he went to England at intervals, spending most of the years 1927 and 1928 there.

On his return from England, September 12, 1928, arrangements were made for his retirement from active service at the Experiment Station, HSPA.

He left Honolulu on November 17, 1928, to make his home in England, (Swezey) He died there on May 13, 1931.

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Frederick Muir-Easton
Frederick Muir-Easton
Frederick Arthur Godfrey Muir
Frederick Arthur Godfrey Muir

Filed Under: Economy, General, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Sugar, Hawaii Sugar Planters, HSPA, Frederick Arthur Godfrey Muir

October 31, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA)

From 1835, when the first successful commercial plantation was started at Kōloa, Kauai, to 1999, when one of the last sugar plantations ceased operations, over 100 sugar plantations and mills played a major role in the economic and social history of Hawaii. (UH Manoa)

Sugar industry members first organized together in 1882 as Planters’ Labor and Supply Company; the initial issue of the Planters Monthly (1882) noted that present publications (newspapers) “do not seem adquate avenues for the discussion of matters pertaining to the agriculture of a country.”

“The questions of labor, methods and cost of planting operations, methods of sugar making, dangers to which crops may be exposed from insects, plant diseases, and other causes, labor saving and sugar machinery, markets for produce, live stock, manures and other topics of similar importance can better be discussed in a publication devoted to their consideration.”

Over the years, The Planters’ Labor and Supply Company … (served as) a voluntary organization of persons and corporations in interested sugar industry. … (It had as its) objects and purposes the improvement of the sugar Industry, the support of an experiment station, the maintenance of a sufficient supply of labor, and the development of agriculture in general.” (Evening Bulletin, 1909)

Then, “After two days’ session the Planters’ Labor and Supply Company has passed out of existence and a new name substituted, under which much better results are hoped for.” (Hawaiian Gazette, November 29, 1895)

An 1895 newspaper announcement noted By-Laws of the newly formed Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA) (evolved from the Planters’ Labor and Supply Company.)

“This Association shall be known as the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association and shall have for its objects the improvement of the sugar industry, the support of an experimental station and laboratory, the maintenance of a sufficient supply of labor, and the development of agriculture in general.”

“Members of this Association may be Sugar plantations or Mill Companies and individuals who are directly interested in Sugar plantations or Mills, but the Trustees of this Association may at their discretion admit other plantation companies and individuals engaged in other agricultural pursuits.” (The Independent, November 27, 1895)

HSPA was funded by the industry through self-assessments on each ton of sugar produced. The charge was determined based on the amount the board approved in the operating budget for HSPA. Each plantation company contributed based on the tons sugar produced.

The HSPA not only conducted scientific research in areas of improved seed, fertilization, and irrigation practices but also centralized management information and decision-making among the various plantations as it became a repository for knowledge of the sugar industry in Hawai’i.

HSPA was early to recognize to see the need to protect the Islands’ water supplies by reforesting mauka areas. On November 21, 1906, HSPA resolved that it “hereby expresses its hearty approval of the policy of setting apart forest reserves, inaugurated and now being prosecuted by the Territorial authorities …”

And that rangers should be provided “to guard and protect such reserves from fire, trespassers and depredation, (and) By the initiation of systematic reforesting of such portions of said reserves as are not now covered with trees”.

They later followed up in December 1916, resolving that “the public interests of the Territory urgently require that a systematic working plan for reforesting the several islands, more particularly the Island of Oahu, from the standpoint of the conservation of water, should be drawn up, adopted, and put into execution at as early a date as practicable”.

In 1919, the HSPA bought 124-acres and Harold Lyon was put in charge of a newly created Department of Botany and Forestation for the Territory of Hawai‘i. He organized the first plant pathology Department established in any US Experiment Station, and also developed the Manoa Arboretum for botanical studies (renamed the Harold L Lyon Arboretum after his death in 1957.)

“Members and administrators of the HSPA appear to acknowledge the difficult physical nature of manual labour in the sugar cane fields.” “Evidence from the early 1920s suggests that there were attempts by Hawaiian sugar plantation management to develop processes that measured individual productivity.”

“It was seen as an undertaking to reward individual efforts and help alleviate labour shortages that continued, albeit at a lower rate, through the 1930s Great Depression.” (Dyball & Rooney)

As an organization representing one of the largest industries in Hawai‘i prior to World War II, the HSPA and its members wielded great economic and political influence. (Nakamura)

Through the 1950s sugar was the dominant economic engine of the Hawaiian Islands. The owners and operators of the factory companies and plantations set the economic, social and political tone of the Islands. (HARC)

HSPA built its main experiment station and administrative facilities at Makiki in 1917 (much of its former outplanting area is now the fields of the Makiki District Park;)in the early-1970s HSPA moved to a new facility in Aiea.

In addition to that, HSPA had a large leased area at Waipiʻo, the Helemano Variety Station, the Ewa Variety Station, the Kailua Substation, the Manoa Arboretum (late known as the Lyon Arboretum, and a few other O‘ahu sites.

On the Island of Hawaii there are four cane variety units (in Hilo, Hāmākua, Kohala and the Hawai‘i Seed Nursery,) as well as other facilities. Kauai had the Kauai Variety Station at Lihue; the Maui substation was at HC&S and Molokai had sugar-cane quarantine facilities.

As plantations began, merged and closed, the business records of these enterprises were often lost or placed in jeopardy. In 1981, HSPA created the Plantation Archives to serve as a repository for records of plantations that chose to donate their records. In 1995, the collection was donated to the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Library. (UH Manoa)

The organization changed its name again in 1996 to Hawai‘i Agriculture Research Center (HARC) which reflects its expanding scope to encompass research in forestry, coffee, forage, vegetable crops, tropical fruits, and many other diversified crops in addition to sugarcane.

In addition to serving Hawaii’s agricultural industries through research and immediate response teams to solve problems, HARC helps other local, national, and international organizations meet their research, on-site consulting, and training needs.

HARC offers a wide array of agricultural services. Mainland seed companies take advantage of Hawaii’s favorable weather conditions by utilizing HARC’s field and nursery services for winter growouts, seed increases, and testing. The analytical chemistry laboratory specializes in residue studies conducted according to EPA Good Laboratory Practices. (HARC)

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19700520 - Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association property in Makiki. Star-Bulletin BW by Warren Roll.
19700520 – Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association property in Makiki. Star-Bulletin BW by Warren Roll.
19610213 - The Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association campus in Makiki. BW Star-Bulletin photo.
19610213 – The Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association campus in Makiki. BW Star-Bulletin photo.
HSPA administration building (fronting Keeaumoku Street)
HSPA administration building (fronting Keeaumoku Street)
HSPA Center Aiea
HSPA Center Aiea
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-007-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-007-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-006-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-006-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-005-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-005-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-004-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-004-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-003-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-003-00001
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Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-002-00001
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Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-001-00001
HSPA facility Aiea
HSPA facility Aiea
HSPA entranct to administrative building at experiment station in Makiki
HSPA entranct to administrative building at experiment station in Makiki

Filed Under: General, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Hawaii Sugar Planters, HSPA, Hawaii Agricultural Research Center, HARC, Planters Labor and Supply Company

May 25, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Mānoa Arboretum

Hahai nō ka ua i ka ululāʻau
The Rain Follows the Forest

“Not enough rain and not enough water in the streams are great evils”.

“It appears to me to be unnecessary to again go deeply into the theory of the relation between forests and rainfall when all intelligent and observing people admit that the decrease or increase of rainfall goes pari passu (‘hand-in-hand’) with the decrease or increase of the forests.”

“The forest, which not only produces rain, but also retains the rainwater, holding it among its leaves and branches, its undergrowth, its myriads of roots and rootlets and its fallen debris, letting the rainwater trickle down slowly to the water streams and keeping them supplied for a long time”.

“(T)hat forest is not there. Rain pours down, the water rushes in torrents through the streams to the sea and soon after everything is dry again.” (Gjerdrum to HSPA, 1897)

“The ultimate success of forestry in Hawaiʻi depends on the continued cooperation of individuals and private corporations with the Territorial Government.” (Board of Agriculture and Forestry, December 31, 1907)

In the early-1900s, Mānoa Valley’s lower slopes were stripped of their native vegetation by excessive agricultural cultivation and the overgrazing of cattle.

Without healthy forest cover, rainwater flowed to the ocean rather than recharging the ground water table, Hawaiʻi’s primary source of drinking water. This loss was of special concern to the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA,) because sugar required great quantities of water.

In 1918, HSPA established Mānoa Arboretum in order to develop methods of watershed restoration, test tree species for reforestation and collect plants of economic value.

They put Dr Harold L Lyon, a young botanist from Minnesota, in charge of 124-acres at the back of Mānoa Valley. He was, at the same time, superintendent of the Territory’s Department of Botany and Forestation.

The site lies in the ʻili (land division) of Haukulu and ʻAihualama, in Mānoa. Several man-made features, including stone platforms, loʻi and the occurrence of many Polynesian-introduced plants note early use of the site.

One of Dr Lyon’s tasks at the arboretum was to identify trees suitable for rebuilding watersheds. Lyon observed that the adverse conditions of soil created from volcanic rock erosion appeared to affect the growth, survival and eventual death of many tree species.

He also noted that native plants did not thrive in areas that were previously trampled by cattle and other animals. The experiment station’s goal was to find trees that not only could survive in soil containing volcanic rock components, but also would comprise efficient water-conserving forests.

Mānoa Arboretum was a test site to evaluate trees that could be used for reforestation throughout the islands, and to test sugarcane seedlings. The test site became the basis of the Mānoa Arboretum.

Tree-planting was a coordinated effort involving Lyon, HSPA and Territorial Forestry under the direction of Ralph Sheldon Hosmer, the Territorial Forester. The early foresters planted many types of trees on an experimental basis, but concluded that native species were of limited utility and turned largely to introduced species for large-scale reforestation efforts. (Woodcock)

Lyon concluded that healthy forests should be preserved, that heavily damaged native forests could not recover on their own, and that damaged watersheds could be restored with introduced plants. Planting began in 1920, and was essentially completed by 1945.

“As an influential board member on the Agriculture and Forestry Commission, Harold Lyon succeeded in persuading the Territorial Commission to import seed of a vast number of alien tree species. … nearly 1,000 alien species were outplanted in Hawaiʻi forest reserves.” (Mueller-Dombois)

Various trees and plants were imported from diverse areas of the world including Madagascar, Australia, India, Brazil, the Malay states, China, the Philippines, southern Europe, the East Indies, the West Indies, New Zealand, Central America and South Africa. Trees that successfully survived the Mānoa Valley soil conditions and promoted water conservation were then widely planted throughout the arboretum

Eucalyptus species, silk oak, paperbark and ironwood were the most frequently planted trees due to their fast growth and their resistance to adverse environmental conditions. However, these very qualities, as well as their ability to seed profusely, would lead to some species such as tropical ash and albizia. (Iwashita)

The number of trees planted rose to many millions by the 1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was available for planting. From 1935 to 1941, with the help of the CCC, an average of close to two-million trees were planted per year in the forest reserves.

Lyon envisioned the plantations as a buffer zone that would be established between the remaining native forests and the lower-elevation agricultural lands to protect the native forests and perform the functions (maintaining input of water to aquifers.)

This large-scale attempt to engineer nature was probably the largest environmental project ever carried out in the islands. Forestry introductions have been a significant contributor to Hawaiʻi’s alien-species crisis, with many of these tree species now problem invasive species. (Woodcock)

In his 1949 annual report to the HSPA entitled, ‘What is to be the fate of the arboretum?,’ Lyon declared the Mānoa Arboretum’s mission to test new plant introductions to be essentially complete; he believed that the HSPA should not remain the arboretum’s custodian.

On July 1, 1953, HSPA conveyed the Mānoa Arboretum to the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaiʻi. The regents were individually entrusted with the fiduciary duty of maintaining the arboretum. In 1962, the Board of Regents transferred the arboretum to the University of Hawaiʻi.

Dr. Lyon remained with the arboretum as its first director under the regents’ and university’s stewardship. After Dr. Lyon’s death in 1957, an advisory committee directed the arboretum until 1961, when Dr. George Gillette assumed the directorship on a part-time basis.

When Dr. Lyon died, the Board of Regents renamed the facility the Harold L. Lyon Arboretum (Lyon Arboretum) in honor of the man so closely associated with its growth and fruition.

In the early years, eight cottages were built on the arboretum site for staff use. The cottages were given alphabetical designations, beginning with cottage “A” at the foot of the hill leading into the arboretum site and ending with cottage “H” at the top of the hill. Lands surrounding the cottages were planted with sugar cane. Dr. Lyon also erected an orchid greenhouse between cottages “F” and “G,” which is still used today.

Cottage “H” was expanded over time and is now the main center of the Harold L. Lyon Arboretum, housing offices, a reception area, an educational office, and a book and gift shop.

Forestry, Forest Reserves, Watershed Partnerships, invasive species and related water and habitat concerns were very much a part of daily activities when I was at DLNR.

Today, I am honored and proud to serve as a director on the Hawaiʻi Forest Institute, an organization dedicated to promote the health and productivity of Hawaiʻi’s forests, through forest restoration, educational programs, information dissemination and support for scientific research.

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Manoa-Valley-Manoa Arboretum-UH
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Manoa_Valley-(LyonArboretum)-1920s
Harold L Lyon_Plaque-(hawaiimagazine)
Harold L Lyon_Plaque-(hawaiimagazine)
University of Hawaii campus, 1932.
University of Hawaii campus, 1932.
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Harold L Lyon_Arboretum-aerial-Group70
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Harold L Lyon_sign-UH
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Harold L Lyon_Arboretum-mcbh
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Lyon-Arboretum-GoogleEarth
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Harold L Lyon_Arboretum-aerial-Group70
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Harold L Lyon_Arboretum-aerial-Group70
Manoa_Valley-Baldwin-(DAGS)-Reg1068-1882
Manoa_Valley-Baldwin-(DAGS)-Reg1068-1882

Filed Under: General, Economy Tagged With: Lyon Arboretum, Hawaii, Oahu, Hawaii Sugar Planters, Manoa, Harold Lyon, HSPA

April 2, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Experiment Stations

Members of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association were typically sugar plantations or mill companies and individuals who were directly interested in sugar production. HSPA was self-funded by the industry through self-assessments on each ton of sugar produced. Each plantation company contributed based on the tons sugar produced.

“This Association shall be known as the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association and shall have for its objects the improvement of the sugar industry, the support of an experimental station and laboratory, the maintenance of a sufficient supply of labor, and the development of agriculture in general.”

“Members of this Association may be Sugar plantations or Mill Companies and individuals who are directly interested in Sugar plantations or Mills, but the Trustees of this Association may at their discretion admit other plantation companies and individuals engaged in other agricultural pursuits.” (The Independent, November 27, 1895)

HSPA’s Experiment Station was founded in the days of the Republic of Hawai‘i on April 2, 1895 (the date that Dr. Walter Maxwell arrived at the port of Honolulu as the first Director of the Station and took up his work in science applied to sugar-cane culture and production.)

The HSPA Experiment Station had its beginnings in an era when farm science was theory, separated from farm practice by a great gulf of unbelief. Truly, the founders of the Experiment Station had a breadth of vision in the necessity for untrammeled research which was extraordinary.

The initial laboratory and office first opened on the ground floor of the Robinson building, corner of Nuʻuanu and King streets. It was later moved to Makiki (on Makiki Street, near Wilder on land leased from the Kapiʻolani Estate.) HSPA later purchased adjoining land from the Lishman family, and acquired the fee of the leased site.

A building was built in 1904 to house offices and laboratories being “ … equipped in modern fashion, with especial regard to the use to which it is to be put. The rooms are large and are provided with sufficient shelves, drawers, etc., the special bug room and the outdoor cages furnish ample facilities for conducting breeding experiments; and, in fact, almost everything in the way of equipment is present that could be desired”. (Grammer)

In 1919, following restructuring after WWI, the Station’s programs of work included: Entomology (focusing on natural enemies of the leafhopper;) Botany and Forestry (focusing on Forestry work, establishment of nurseries and stations on all islands; and pineapple work in accordance with our contract with the Hawaiian Pineapple Packers’ Association) …

… Chemistry (Fertilizer control work, analytical work as needed by the plantations; soil surveys; and research work on Hawaiian soils;) Sugar Technology (Mill inspections and laboratory investigations on mill operations;) and Agriculture (field experimentation on fertilization, cultivation, irrigation, etc., and extension of seedling work.)

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the HSPA Trustees, “resolved, that in light of the existing emergency, The Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association does pledge its fullest cooperation to the Government of the United States and places all its facilities, services and membership at the disposal of our Government.”

The onset of war forced the Station to suspend immediately work on some of its important projects; numerous members of the Station joined the Armed Forces, while other members left to devote their skill to some special phase of the war effort.

When the Honolulu Blood Bank was frantically calling for blood and more blood, the Station not only made its laboratory facilities and apparatus available to the Blood Bank but assigned numerous members of its technical staff to full-time work.

Members of the Chemistry department devoted considerable time and effort to war work, mainly concerned with such matters as chemical surveys, camouflage problems, weed control, soil sterilization, chemical-dipping problems, precautions in handling toxic materials, demolition issues, and gas decontamination problems.

To meet a very obvious need, the Pathology department cultured the penicillin-yielding mold and produced in large quantities products of the highest quality and potency which were made available to local physicians throughout the long and critical period during which penicillin was not available for the treatment of civilians.

The primary object of the Molasses laboratory had been to produce a high-quality yeast for human consumption. After December 7, however, the shortage of bakers’ yeast in Honolulu brought many requests to the Station for aid. It was found that the yeast slurry was excellent for bread making and the Station furnished yeast slurry to numerous bakeries.

One of the most active units of the Station during the war was the Library. It was practically a war-time utility and scarcely a day passed that a group of service men could not be found around the Library tables.

Information was requested on an amazing and endless variety of subjects such as chemistry, ordnance, agricultural crops, rat control, mosquito data and other material pertinent to camp or field work, diversified and soilless agriculture, insects, botany, and so on.

HSPA built its main experiment station and administrative facilities at Makiki (much of its former outplanting area is now the fields of the Makiki District Park;) in the early-1970s HSPA moved to a new facility in Aiea.

In addition to that, HSPA had a large leased area at Waipiʻo, the Helemano Variety Station, the Ewa Variety Station, the Kailua Substation, the Manoa Arboretum (later known as the Lyon Arboretum,) and a few other O‘ahu sites.

On the Island of Hawaii there were four cane variety units (in Hilo, Hāmākua, Kohala and the Hawai‘i Seed Nursery,) as well as other facilities. Kauai had the Kauai Variety Station at Lihue; the Maui substation was at HC&S and Molokai had sugar-cane quarantine facilities.

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Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-001-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-001-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-007-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-007-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-004-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-004-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-006-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-006-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-003-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-003-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-005-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-005-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-002-00001
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-002-00001
HSPA entrance to administrative building at experiment station in Makiki
HSPA entrance to administrative building at experiment station in Makiki
HSPA-Makiki-1970-SB
HSPA-Makiki-1970-SB
HSPA-Makiki-1961-SB
HSPA-Makiki-1961-SB
HSPA administration building (fronting Keeaumoku Street)
HSPA administration building (fronting Keeaumoku Street)
HSPA facility Aiea
HSPA facility Aiea
HSPA Center Aiea
HSPA Center Aiea
Punchbowl-DiamondHead-DAGS-2412-1952
Punchbowl-DiamondHead-DAGS-2412-1952

Filed Under: General, Economy Tagged With: Experiment Stations, HSPA, Hawaii, Sugar, Hawaii Sugar Planters

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