

THE JHAWAIIAN 



FORESTER I AGRICULTURIST 



Vol. XIT. DECEMBER, 1915. No. 12 



OUR FRIENDS THE TREES. 



Address by C. S. Judd, Superintendent of Forestry, at Arbor Day 

 Exercises, Pohiikaina School, Honolulu, Nov. 19, 1915. 



Do you know that the oldest living things in our world are^'^'*'' ■ 

 trees? The giant sequoia trees of California, and their brothers, 4iAJit>i 

 the redwoods, which we use here in these Islands for fence posts 

 and water tanks, are the last survivors of a great family of trees 

 which covered a large part of the western world in the past ages 

 when strange and monstrous animals roamed the forest. When 

 Solomon was building his temple about 2915 years ago, if he had 

 only known it and had had the proper ships, he could have used 

 for the rafters of his temple the giant sequoia of the Sierra 

 Nevada mountains instead of the firs and cedars of Lebanon. 

 Even then, these noble trees, which now tower up into the sky to 

 more than half the height of Punchbowl, were over a thousand 

 years old. 



Aside from this interesting fact as to the age of trees, I want 

 to point out why we regard the trees as our friends and why, for 

 that reason, we celebrate this day by planting them. 



What did you sleep in last night? A wooden house. 



What did most of you sleep on last night? A wooden bed. 



What did you eat your breakfast on this morning? A wooden 

 table. 



What did you sit in while you ate it? A wooden chair. 



What was used in cooking your breakfast? Wood, undoubt- 

 edly, in most cases. 



What was used in starting the fire in the stove? A wooden 

 match. 



What was the newspaper which you read this morning made 

 of? And the books which you study in this school? Mostly of 

 wood pulp. 



So you see that we must call the trees our friends if we simply 

 consider their usefulness in supplying us with wood for these 

 articles, without which we could not very well get along. 



And besides the value of trees in other countries for produc- 

 ing wood for our use here, let us see how useful are our own 

 trees in these Islands. Take the algaroba or kiawe tree alone, 

 which was first brought to these Islands about 87 years ago and 



