ISLAND CATTLE RANCHING

Evening Star, Issue 22228, 4 January 1936, Page 10

ISLAND CATTLE RANCHING

TOURIST’S INTERESTING LIFE FERTILE MAUI Cattle ranching on fertile .Maui, one of the Hawaiian group of islands 90 miles from Honolulu, is the interesting vocation of Mr It. Yon Tempsky, at present in Dunedin in .the course ,of a holiday tour of the Dominion. He controls the Ulupalakau property, the Hawaiian name for. ripe bread of the gods, a combination of two ranches of a total area of 75,000 acres, and carrying the very best type of Hereford cattle, built up after 20 years of l breeding from thoroughbred bulls specially imported from a registered herd. The pastures on which the beasts are fattened have a significant link with New Zealand, as Mr Von TempskyV father and uncle were pioneers in the importation of foreign grasses into the. islands from this country. , . (£bpegh pottle :panchfng m OmM.

an important pursuit, it is a secondary industry of Maui, which has an area of 900,000 acres, the primary products, being sugar and pineapples.., One com-i pany has an annual raw sugar output of 90,000 tons, and possesses a„ plant that' can produce 900,000 tons of the unrefined brown : sugar per year. dian corn and " coffee are also raised, and though there is a good market for the grain the coffee industry has been, practically killed because of the almost ridiculous price it has brought since the depression. The plight of the growers has been alleviated by the American Federal Government, which, has issued farm loans to them. There are over 120 paddocks on Mr Von Tempsky’s ranch in order to es> pediate the separation •of the cattle during the different processes of fastening. The ranch possesses its own butchering plant and also a distributing plant, which was erected -in" 1929 at a cost of 50,000 dollars. A total of approximately 2,000. head are sold annually, all being required for consumption on , the island> _ from which the ranch does no exporting, as it controls, all the retail trade. Also on Maui it the Part ranch, the largest in the «- land group and half a million acres in extent. It carries 26,000 head of cattle and 30,000 sheep, and possesses the largest registered Hereford herd in the United States. This ranch it famed for" its horses and polo ponies, and many of the 2,200 horses have become famous on the Californian race Maui is in direct communication with Honolulu by aeroplane and boat i. .service, and also by wireless, ■ and its continental climate classes it as an. island of _ many occupations. On the lower regions.it is cooled by the northeast trad© winds, which blow all the year round, but on the mountain slopes the conditions _ are hotter, A ! large part Of Maui, like many of the islands in the, group, is a desert, and the Honolulu Corn and Sugar Company has spent a large sum in irrigating 7,000 acres, the water being ob - tained from vhe vast forest regions and ’from artesian bores. ■ There are exceptionally fine roads in different regions of the island, and through Mr , Von Tempsky’s ranch there is one that has been built by the Federal Government to a region in which rises Hal*> kala, the largest Mdntpi » IM., 7