198 

 HILO GRASS AND TRAILS. 



Keomnku, Lanai/ June 28, 1921. 



To the Editor 



Hawaiian Forester and Agriculturist, 

 Honolulu, T. H. 



Sir: — I have read with interest Superintendent of Forestry 

 C. S. Judd's ''Hawaiian Forests and Trails" in your April num- 

 ber, and I will be grateful if you will give me a little space for 

 a plea for leaving open to lovers of native plants and forest 

 scenery the trails in the Government Forests, as I am sure that 

 Mr. Judd is quite mistaken in some of his deductions. 



Seventeen years of close study of the effect of protection on 

 the Hawaiian forests convinces me that no possible harm can 

 come to the wet forest from the introduction of any kind of grass 

 along forest trails, provided animals, including pigs, are rigor- 

 ously excluded from ranging in the forest. A fringe of grass 

 may grow along the trails, but has no chance whatever of spread- 

 ing into the forest, and even where in a forest, before being 

 brought under protection, grasses have taken hold on open spaces, 

 in a remarkably short time the ferns will overtop and choke the 

 grasses, and the shrubs and trees will follow to take up the 

 ground, the length of time depending on the size of the spaces 

 and the degree to which the forest has been denuded ; and as 

 the encroachment of the ferns comes from the outside, large 

 spaces will naturally be a longer time in covering, but on small 

 spaces the introduced grasses quickly disappear. 



Specimen collectors will do some little injury to the forests, 

 but if true nature lovers it will be slight and nature will quickly 

 mend it. Picnic parties can do a great deal of daijiage thought- 

 lessly by crushing the ferns and breaking the shrubs, but the 

 hiker who keeps to the trails will not hurt the forest cover in 

 any way. and a certain number of trails being necessary in most 

 forests, it would be a pity to exclude the well-behaved citizen 

 from the unique enjoyment of tramping these trails. 



The triumph of the native vegetation over the introduced 

 grasses can only be seen where stock are rigorously excluded, 

 as the grazing of stock has a tendency to injure the forest growth 

 and strengthen the grasses. Therefore, I feel sure that where 

 the forester finds grasses encroaching on the forest, a close ex- 

 amination will show him that stock periodically invade the lo- 

 cality. 



Keep all kinds of stock and fire out of the wet forests, and 

 regulate the human visitant, and the forests thus treated will 

 suffer no harm from grasses accidentally introduced. 



* 

 Yours trulv, G. C. ]\1unro. 



