Vol. XLIII. No. 1 25 Cents a Copy January, 1932 MID-PACIFIC MAGAZINE Dr. L. 0. Howard, retiring chief of the Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Depart- ment of Agriculture, whose services cover a period of more than half a century. This photograph was taken at the Pan-Pacific Clubhouse on Dr. Howard's recent visit to Honolulu. On a former visit, in 1924, he was chairman of the First Pan-Pacific Food Conservation Conference. -W/r(4`d Indnal./L1LIRnrii RrARTIDLIRRTRRTinnoLu 4. t 04r filliii-ilartfir filaga3tur CONDUCTED BY ALEXANDER HUME FORD Volume XLIII Number 1 • CONTENTS FOR JANUARY, 1932 . 1 . 4, Scientific Problems of the Pineapple Industry - - - 3 4 By Dr. Royal N. Chapman 1 X' All About Bamboo 9 . Rice 15 1 L By Dr. F. G. Krauss el • i • Problems in Copra Industry 19 . • Irrigation in Peru 25 • By C. W. Sutton • . • • ! Some General Information on Panama 33 i By Rene C. Reynolds • r • );.,.. Cinchona, A Tree That Has Altered Maps - - - 41 • g 1• .1 .1 • Cinchona Culture in Java 43 . ri An Excursion to the Riu-Kiu Islands 49 1 • By P. J. Schmidt ,.4.. The Production and Marketing of Diatomaceous Earth - 55 By A. L. Lomax 1 59 l4 The Eel in Japan 5 I '. Frogs in Hawaii 61 . By E. H. Bryan, Jr. ■ 1 • Bulletin of the Pan-Pacific Union, New Series No. 143 - 65 :4. ICI. • Journal of the Pan-Pacific Research Institution, Vol. VII, No. 1. ., ,,,.._ agazine ,„; Gip fi: id-farifir n '-= Published monthly by ALEXANDER HUMS FORD, Pan-Pacific Club Building, Honolulu, T. IL Yearly sub- l scription in the United States and possessions, $3.00 in advance. Canada and Mexico, $3.25. 17?a For all foreign countries, $3.50. Single Copies, 25c. ■L.-. Entered as second-class matter at the Honolulu Postoffice. 0-. Permission is given to reprint any article from the Mid-Pacific Magazine. li • • ,,-70,40•44• „Ino • • • • vuurnurrurroncrilvourrunurronurrorrozrm • • Printed by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Ltd. THE MID-PACIFIC • 0 is O Oi THE MID-PACIFIC 3 Smooth Cayenne Pineapple MjtM, 711(.7/ • • • • IGITIVITURVIIC71 • • 411,114M • 1131 .-: Scientific Problems of the • Pineapple Industry By DR. ROYAL N. CHA PM AN Director, Experiment Station of the Association of Hawaiian Pineapple Canners. Before the Pan-Pacific Research Institution. _. ■ ■ cm wv.yi-NT Ti\iTrItyntycliteit (1W11:16.,..c../N] 1 The scientific problems of a single plant chemistry, the study of their diseases and are the problems of plants in general. their pests all fall within the specialized Agriculturally the problems of the pine- subjects of genetics, physiology, chemis- apple plant are very specialized, and ex- try, pathology, nematology and en- perience with other plants that are grown tomology. agriculturally may not help much or may Our agriculturists know their pine- even be misleading. I know of no other apples. Our geneticists, chemists, physi- agricultural plant that can endure the ologists, pathologists, nematologists and limits of moisture and altitude that the entomologists know their subject matter. pineapple plant endures and produces They can apply it to any plant. under. Scientifically the problems of One might think that an experiment breeding pineapples, their physiology and station devoted to a single plant would be 4 THE MID-PACIFIC an institution of narrowly specialized canning. In both of these lines the prob- work ; but such cannot be the case, as will lems are fundamentally special cases of be illustrated by the problems of the vari- the problems of growing and canning ous subject matter departments. which are to be met with wherever grow- If the Genetics Department can pro- ing and canning are clone. duce a new variety of pineapple that will The canning part is more standardized produce more fruit of better quality than than the growing, so the emphasis is on the present Smooth Cayenne, which at the problems of growing. The canning the same time will be resistant to all the process is well standardized and the Na- pests and diseases that the Smooth Cay- tional Canners Association has a research enne is subject to, it will almost put the laboratory devoted to those problems. rest of the Experiment Station out of The problem of maintaining the fer- business. tility of the soil with one-crop agricul- Dr. Collins' recognition of a triploid ture is an important one. In the attempt hybrid among our seedling pineapples was to measure the fertility and the defi- due to a knowledge of hybrids of plants ciencies of the soil so that a prescription in general. The seedling is a cross of the can be written for a fertilization program Wild Brazilian pineapple with our own that will take care of the needs of the Smooth Cayenne in which the hybrid has plant for optimum growth, we are faced two doses of Cayenne and one of Wild with the same problem as other plant Brazil instead of one dose of each. Pine- growers everywhere. apples have fifty chromosomes and when What seem to be the best ideas for new the reproductive cells are formed each has advances along this line have come from twenty-five ; so that when the two unite, Germany and had nothing to do with one from each parent, there are again pineapples in their inception but they ap- fifty chromosomes — twenty-five from parently apply equally well to all plants. each. In this case there are seventy-five Without bothering with the mathema- chromosomes, twenty-five from Wild tics of Mitscherlich's doctrine, he has de- Brazil and fifty from Cayenne. vised a method of experimentation where- At the present time this appears to be by, using a series of experiments to repre- a very fortunate combination. The Wild sent the three elements of fertilization, Brazil is a hardy, spiny, long-rooted thing it is possible, from the results, to plot a that produces so many suckers that it is curve which will show the amount to soon a spiny jungle. And its fruit is more spend on fertilizer to obtain the optimum like an ordinary apple core than a pine- yield for the money. With this method apple. However, the triploid hybrid is the plant becomes its own measure of smooth, long-rooted and has a good fruit. nutrient materials in the ground and of There are two ways of going about the the amount to be supplied to get the hunt for new varieties ; one by crossing maximum yield. The difficulty with for hybrids, the other by looking for Mitscherlich's work is that the pineapple chance variations. We are doing the cross- crop extends over a period of five to ing, in the belief that it offers greater seven years, and by the time the result chance of success. has been obtained for a piece of land and The important requirement for this the land has passed through an inter- work is a fundamental knowledge of the cycle treatment preparing for planting facts and methods of plant breeding in again, its constitution may be quite general, for a good geneticist can very changed from that which obtained at the quickly adapt himself to the particular time the measurement was made. It looks case of the pineapple. as if we could get around the difficulty The problems of the chemistry of pine- by adopting the method of another Ger- apples include both those of growing and man, Neubauer, who has devised pot THE MID-PACIFIC 5 tests to be run in the greenhouse. Some can then run the experiment on the pine- rapidly growing seedling such as wheat apple plant to make sure that it checks or rye is used and the results gotten in in with the other plants. The physiology a period of two or three weeks. So far of the pineapple plant is most interesting. as we are concerned, this depends very Its efficiency in the use of moisture is out- largely upon getting another plant which standing. It grows from ten inches of will grow rapidly but will give the same rainfall a year to 16o inches. This is the kind of results to be gotten with pine- same variety of plant and it produces al- apple. Dr. Magistad hopes he can do this. most exactly the same kind of fruit under We are therefore going to try to adopt these various conditions. A corn plant the methods used by these Germans for requires about 50o pounds of water to use in the pineapple industry ; and by produce one pound of dry matter, but a running the greenhouse tests on the pineapple plant can do it on about 3o samples of soils from the fields that are pounds of water. As striking as the re- to be planted in the next few weeks, we quirements of the pineapple plant are for possibly will be able to write a prescrip- water and rare elements, the water physi- tion telling the plantation just how much ology of the pineapple plant is like that of the various nutrient materials to use of other plants. It simply requires a small to get the optimum yield on pineapples,— amount, but the nature of the require- writing a prescription just the same as a ments in everything are just like those medical man would write a prescription of other plants. It does all the things that for a patient. When the yields come in other plants do but with a smaller amount from the fields we can check back on the of water. accurateness of the prescription ; and as The other problems of the pineapple time goes on the accuracy should increase.