Horses and sheep, as well as cattle, become very fond of this grass, and eat it down very close.

The handling of the cattle is intrusted to native people, who live on the rancho or estate; and the planter or stock farmer has an advantage, in these Islands, in finding a laboring population living within the bounds of his own place.

The large estates were formerly the property of the chiefs.

They are the old "lands." But when the kuliana law was made, the common people were allowed to take out for themselves such small holdings as they held in actual cultivation.

These kulianas they still hold; and thus it often happens that within the bounds of a large estate fifty or sixty families will live on their little freeholds; and these form a natural and cheap laboring force for the plantation or rancho.
On the Island of Niihau, I was told, there are still about three hundred native people.