New Use for California Product

Ragland explains that the plants are distributed between the rows of mulch, or roofing paper, and planted through the paper. The planting is done by thrusting a long trowel through the paper at correct intervals and by tilting the trowel the plant is slipped into the ground.

It was not until recently that anybody thought that the mulch paper could be utilized as an asset of agriculture.

C. F. Eckart, known as the Burbank of Hawaii, was the man to whom credit is due" says Ragland. Eckhart experimented for years before perfecting his process and obtaining patents on it.

Growers gradually began experimenting with the mulch on small tracts of land, and as soon as its success was demonstrated they increased their use of it.

Plantation Covcrcd With Pabco Mqlch Pepcr

A striking innovation in the growing of pineapples resulted in a 40 percent increase, and which may as successfully be applied to every form of agriculture, was revealed yesterday by R. E. Ragland, upon his arrival from, Honolulu.

"Pabco Mulch paper, laid in rows along the pineapple beds, has been the means of increasing the production of the island growers, "says Ragland, who is a meniber of the Monolulu export department of The Paraffin Companies, Inc. of San Francisco, which has supplied the large bulk of the insular growers this year.

"Today," says Ragland, "practically every grower in the islands uses Pabco mulch," and a new adjunct of a great Western industry has been firmly established.

That mu'lch will be used on practically everythingl grown where conservation of heat or moisture is needed before rnany years elapse, was the prediction made by Ragland yesterday.

He declared that successful experiments have been made with mulching paper on Sumatra tobacco grown in Florida which promises to revolutionize its growth.

"Growers have also been permitted to raise pineapples at a higher altitude than previously by the utilization of mulch," declared Ragland, "and {ands previously almost unusuable are now being put under pineapples."