SANDALWOOD INDUSTRY

Evening Star, Issue 22595, 12 March 1937, Page 14

SANDALWOOD INDUSTRY

REVIVAL IN HAWAII That sandalwood, once Hawaii’s chief stock-in-trade, is making a spirited come-back and may again become an important export of the islands, is indicated by a recent report from Charles Sheldon Jgdd, territorial forester. It was this sweet-scented wood which attracted Pacific Ocean traders to Hawaii and established Hawaii as a liaison land between Orient and Occident. To-day the best market for sandalwood is New York, where the heartwood brings as much as £IOO a ton, and is used for carving and the distillation of fragrant oil for perfumery. ' Knowing this market, the Territorial Forestry Department has inaugurated a sandalwood forestation programme to replenish - the trees stripped from the islands by the early trade. From 1791 to 1840 the trade, tring in Hawaii. Continued at a brisk pace, reaching its peak from 1810 to 1825. The wood obtained from the natives in exchange frequently for nominal trinkets was invariably shipped to Canton, where it was bought at handsome prices and used for incense and the manufacture of fancy articles. It was not, as most residents of Hawaii believe to-day, a normal exhaustion of the supply by the continuous and heavy demand which virtually denuded the islands of the product by 1856. The commoners of the islands revolted against the trade. ■ At the direction of their chiefs they had been directed to hunt for the wood to the neglect of their taro and sweet potato patches Famine resulted. Revolt followed ; not against the chiefs, as might be supposed, but against the sandalwood. The people destroyed as many as possible of the trees which had survived the trade.

But to-day natural growth is by no means extinct. Only by comparison with their status in the old trading days do sandalwood trees seem to have vanished from the islands. Mr Judd reports that at least seven different species are common. The largest trees, found on Oahu, are Soft high and 20in in diameter. Experimental planting has been done, chiefly with seeds of an Indian variety obtained from the British forest service. Sandalwood is of slow growth and takes 50 years to reach marketable size. It is not with an eye to an immediate market, but with the future in view, therefore, that Mr Judd and his staff are tenderly nursing their little sandalwood seedlings.