(Evening Bulletin, March 3, 1910)
Believing it will be a paying proposition to negotiate with the lumber dealers in Japan, the Hawaii Lumber Mill Company, a Japanese corporation formed under the laws of the Territory, will send its first shipment of koa lumber, in the near future, to Japan, where it is said the price is extraordinarily high.
According to Mukuno, one of the right-hand men of the local concern, the company has been cutting down and milling some koa trees in Kaupo, Maui. The land on which the koa trees stood belongs to N. Omsted1 of Hana.
The company has purchased all the koa trees on the land, and it is the intention of the shareholders of the company to send the famous Hawaii koa lumber to Japan, where, it is said, it is in great demand.
Pending the return from the States of P. Peck, the foreign agent of the company, negotiations will be entered into for the charter of a suitable vessel to carry the lumber to Japan.
Mukuno, when asked this morning about the purchase price of the koa trees in Kaupo, declined to say anything. He stated emphatically, however, that the company, which has been in existence for some time, will gradually increase its business, until it will become one of the big lumber concerns in the Islands.
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