--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Horner, John M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 7 number: 11 published: 1904-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'John M. Horner, "Adventures of a Pioneer. V," *Improvement Era* 7, no. 11 (September 1904): 849–855.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0711unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0711unse start_page: 849 end_page: 855 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1904-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0711unse publication_year: 1904 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1904, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Adventures of a Pioneer. V ADVENTURES OF A PIONEER. EMBRACING THE STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPHS OF A LONG AND BUSY LIFE. BY HON. JOHN M. HORNER, OF PAAUILO, HAWAH. v.— THE CURRENCY QUESTION— SUGAR CULTURE IN HAWAII. As afflictions seldom come singly, so it was in my case. Aside from the loss of my property, I was otherwise afflicted. My only daughter sickened and died, while my property was being confiscated. I was also personally afflicted. Lock-jaw came upon me with a heavy fever, which lasted a long time. My life was despaired of by my physicians, relatives and friends. An unexpected favorable change took place. My recovery was slow, and my sickness left me with but little use of my legs; for weeks, I used a crutch when moving around. I stated in the commencement of this narrative that "my star of hope rose early, and had never set beneath the horizon." At this time it nearly went down. I gradually regained my strength, after months of mental and physical suffering, and slowly with it came back my ambition, for all of which I am humbly thankful to my Heavenly Father. Not for these only am I thankful, but, as in the case of Job, I have been blessed again with reasonable wealth, and an influence beyond my most ambitious hopes; and last, though not least, have been blessed with more sons and daughters. I have lived longer since my 1 jss and suffering than before those troublesome times. , 850 IMPROVEMENT ERA. was granted a new lease of life by the Great One, and for a I purpose unknown to me. However, in the absence of any more worthy, visible object, for me to work at for the good of man, outside of other duties, the currency question impressed me as the most important. Many wise and learned men and professional financiers have been working at it to no effect, as witness the panics of 1873 and 1893. God is the "fountain of all intelligence," and uses the "weak things of this world to confound the wise," etc. Since I am one of the weak, I thought he had chosen me for the purpose of showing the weakness of our present money system, and to invent, work out, and make known, a more perfect system for the use of man. My suffering under our present money system, I thought, with the blessing of heaven, would qualify me for the work, considered by many to be impossible. Whether this is a correct surmise, or only a welcome thought, the endeavor to perform it certainly has been a delightful labor. I am happy to say, the work has been done, and my mind rests satisfied with it. If the American people will adopt it, money panics will be impossible. It will effect all that is claimed for it, and no doubt much more not yet seen that practice would reveal. For many of the evils of our present money system, and for the numerous blessings which this new and just system will impart, if adopted, study the book National Finance and Public Money where the bill for organizing the system, and numerous unanswerable arguments used in support of the system may be found. The difference between our present money system and the new system is, the first is a private money system, and the latter is a public money system. What is public money? Public money is money created by act of Congress —the people's agent. Public money belongs to all the people, and by their agent — their government banking department—they must loan it to the administration, to states, to municipalities, etc., upon demand, and to all industries of the country, farmers, manufacturers, merchants, bankers, and to every citizen, upon securities named by Congress. The congressional enactment of the bill above referred to, would inaugurate public money, and install the people as a whole, rich and poor, to be the money power, and prevent all future ADVENTURES OF A PIONEER. 851 money panics. I should not have penned this much here about public money, only for the fact that I am writing a small sketch of my life work, and this is a part of it, and I think the most valuable part. It is now over twenty-six years since it was first considered. The invention has been completed a long time. My extensive writings since have been to introduce it to public notice. I thank my Heavenly Father for placing the thought in my heart of producing a more perfect money system for the good of man. The satisfaction that came to me in working it out, and trying to show the people its many advantages, has been enjoyable. It was impressed upon my mind with a persistence not to be ignored, and I willingly accepted the charge. The people are slow in accepting it; so are they slow in accepting the Gospel. "The weak things of the world shall come forward and break down the mighty and strong ones." Amen, One of my first ventures, after the loss of my property and recovery from my sickness, was building a bridge over the Alameda river, under a contract with the county. I saved three hundred dollars by this labor. I contracted to drain a small lake in the neighborhood, got well paid for my labor, as in both cases I did most of it personally. The owners of a piece of land in San Francisco, not having a clear idea as to their title to it, offered us (my brother and myself) a share of what we could get out of it, if we would work it up; we received over three thousand dollars for this labor. About this time, we had an extra dry year in California, not enough rain fell to mature a crop, and believing vegetables would be a paying crop, in the fall, we looked around for an opportunity of producing one, and finding Alameda River Mill was idle, we rented the use of the water which went to waste in the bay, and some land near by, made our ditches, and in June commenced to wet, plow, and plant a crop of vegetables, mostly potatoes. From this venture we realized seven thousand dollars. So by littles we regained our feet; but meeting with losses in other farming ventures from rust, drought, unsaleable crops and other causes, our progress was slow, in fact, rather backward, during the last few years that we remained in California. At this time my oldest son was cultivating sugar cane in the 852 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Hawaiian Islands, and hearing that Mr. Clans Spreckels was about to open the largest sugar plantation known, he advised us to see Mr. Spreckels and get a contract from him to cultivate cane for him. If we could do so, he thought, we would do better in the Islands than in California. We saw Mr. Spreckels, and contracted with him to go to the islands and cultivate cane on shares. In fulfillment of this con- tract we sold our farms, chartered a schooner, and placed therein our families — eighteen souls— our household effects, horses and farming tools, and started for the islands, where we arrived on the 25th of December, 1879. The schooner quickly discharged, and we commenced hauling the lumber for our houses onto the land we were to use, about six miles distant. We had five hundred acres of land allotted to us. My brother and sons worked the western half; I and my sons, the eastern half. We labored under the firm name of J. M. Horner & Sons. My boys did all our plowing and team work, in preparing for and growing our first crop of two hundred and forty acres. In consequence of our planting a much larger area than we contracted to plant the first year, J. M, Horner & Sons borrowed forty thousand dollars. Our crop did well. It exceeded our expectations, in both yield and the price for which it sold. We returned the borrowed money, and had a net profit of twenty-five thousand dollars from our venture. Our crop yielded two thousand pounds of sugar more per acre than the land cultivated by the plantation, which fact fired its managers with jealousy, so they conspired to prevent us raising another crop by withholding the water from us, which they had the power, but not the right, to do. The consequence was, that our cane dried up, did not pay for harvesting, and we thus lost much of the money we saved from the first crop. We left Mr. Spreckels and contracted with the owners of the Pacific Sugar Mill Co. to do one- half of the cultivation for their mill one of my boys "took charge of the business, the mill com- ; pany supplying the money to work it. Here we made considerable sugar, increasing the yield on our half of the plantation from five hundred tons per year to two thousand. The year before we parted with this property, we were sure it was worth eighty thousand dollars over and above the debt for advances, but the enactment of the — ADVENTURES OF A PIONEER. 853 McKinley bill so affected sugar property here that we willingly sold for a small sum more than the debt. The price of sugar had depreciated from one hundred and sixty dollars per ton, which our first crop sold for, to less than sixty dollars. At the time we made the last contract referred to, we rented in the district of Hawaii-Hamakua, twelve hundred and fifty acres since increased to twenty- four hundred— of good, wild cane land, with a view to starting a new plantation. This was rather discouraging work to undertake, as the land, though rich, was covered with a jungle of trees and brush. All had to be grubbed and cleared before it could be used, at an expense of thirty-three dollars per acre. Over one hundred acres per year was cleared and brought under cultivation. In addition to rents and clearii.g the land, houses had to be built for managers, quarters for one hundred and fifty or two hundred laborers; and accommodations for more than half that number of horses had to be provided. The horses had to be purchased, as well as plantation tools; mill (a wagon wheel had and roads, bridges, a never yet turned upon the land) had to be built, fencing had to be erected, besides the raising of the cane. The building of the mill and the providing of all the necessaries for producing the first two hundred acres of cane, would involve an expenditure of near three hundred thousand dollars. To provide this sum was no small concern. However, our unprecedented success in making our first crop gave confidence to people of means that whatever we undertook in the way of cultivation would be a success. So we readily found means to carry on the planting department of the plantation. Another gentleman contracted to build the mill, he to own onehalf, and we the other half, provided we repaid to him one-half the cost of its construction, with the interest within a specified time. The mill was built at a cost of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, and we returned to him one-half of the money as agreed, and thereby became the owners of one half of the sugar works, and all the planting interests which gave us three- fourths of all the sugar manufactured at the works. Not wishing to carry all our eggs in one basket, we established a stock ranch where we raised all the horses and mules re- 854 IMPROVEMENT ERA. quired on the plantation, and some for sale. We have over four hundred head of horses and mules on the ranch, and one hundred and twenty on the plantation. The ranch has some three thousand four hundred head of beef and dairy stock, the plantation and neighborhood are supplied with butter and beef from the ranch, and the surplus is disposed of elsewhere. We were quite a time bringing up the ranch to a paying point, as we had to pay rent from the start, and more than one hundred miles of fencing was built and kept in repair, with houses for the superintendent and employes. Several thousand dollars were used for empounding water by building dams, purchasing water tanks, building cisterns, etc. Some of the cisterns have a capacity of five hundred thousand gallons. The ranch has returned its borrowed money, paid its running expenses, and for some time has yielded a few thousand dollars of revenue. This year,^(1903) it has yielded a net revenue of seventeen thousand dollars, and the coming year it will be still better, we hope. For some years past we have made a small venture in coffee production. Laborers' wages increasing, and the price of coffee declining from twenty cents per pound to seven cents, we have concluded to wind up the business, with a loss perhaps of three thousand dollars. The incomes and the receipts from the sale of sugar, amounting to over two million five hundred thousand dollars, have nearly all been"absorbed in enlarging, working and improving the plantation. The increase in cost of labor, the depreciation in sugar prices, interest for money, dry years, fires, and some other items, have multiplied our debts to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and a mortgage holds down all incomes until the debt is paid. We are encouraged to believe, however, that we will get out of debt, as this year we have paid over fifty thousand dollars of the above debt, and hope to do as well by the blessings of "heaven until all is paid. (to be continued.) A TRIP TO CUBA. BY UR. JOSEPH M. TANNER, SUPERINTENDENT OF CHURCH SCHOOLS. IV.— RESOURCES OF CUBA. Of all the West India islands, there are probably none that offer today greater inducements to capital than Cuba, the Pearl of the Antilles. And Cuba is a beautiful land, rich in agricultural products, and almost every fruit known to tropical climates. At the time of the Spanish-American war, when it was announced that there was no intention on the part of the United States to annex this island, it was believed by many of our people that the government of this country had been guilty of a political blunder, for the reason that all countries of the temperate zone find yearly greater demands for the products of tropical climates. The resources of Cuba were naturally such as to invite capital, and to make its development a matter of great importance to the United States, in view of its close proximity to this country. There are, today, on the island, something like a million and a half people. The most conservative estimate is that the island is capable of sustaining at least five million people, and the estimates range all the way up to fifteen millions. In traveling about the island, one is constantly impressed by the ihought that every year many millions are lost to the island because the soil is not properly cultivated, and the grasses are not eaten by the cattle that ought to be on a thousand hills. Quite a number of Americans are exploring various parts of the island, and it is feared that land is bought up in many places for purely speculative purposes. The modern American boom has struck Cuba. At the last legislature, a bill was introduced to prevent foreigners from holding land on the island. While this did not become a law, it was evidently aimed at American speculators. The important industry of Cuba is sugar. The island is par-