28 The Journal 
While ona visit to the Hawaiian Islands 
in the summer of 1913 to study the 
taro industry, the senior author made a 
trip to the North Kona region on Hawaii 
where the kokio is found, and through 
the courtesy of Robert Hind, owner of 
the Hind Ranch at Puuwaawaa, was 
enabled to visit the trees nearest the 
ranch headquarters. The hearty co- 
operation of Mr. Hind was an important 
factor in successfully carrying out the 
plan to protect, by fencing, the larger 
grove of kokio trees on the leased 
Government land. 
GROWS ON LAVA BED 
The little group visited, consisting of 
four trees, is perhaps a mile from the 
headquarters, which are at the base of 
the old volcanic cone, Puuwaawaa, on 
the slope of Mt. Hualalai. Immediately 
on leaving the grounds about the house 
one comes to the lava bed on which the 
kokio trees grow. This bed, while 
more or less covered with scrubby 
growth, has as yet scarcely begun to 
decompose, and is therefore exceedingly 
rough and difficult to traverse, even on 
horseback. The residence on the ranch 
is at about 2,700 feet elevation, while 
the kokio trees are a few hundred feet 
lower. The annual rainfall at the 
ranch averages 29 inches but is probably 
much less where the kokio trees grow; 
besides this, the dry air and the winds 
of Heredity 
which frequently follow the showers, 
quickly absorb the moisture from the 
rocky soil. The flora of the lava bed 
is of a desert type. 
The trees do not stand close together; 
in some cases they are separated by 
several hundred feet. They are sur- 
rounded by the shrubs and weeds com- 
mon to the lava field in that vicinity. 
The photograph of the best of the four 
trees, reproduced on another page, 
shows the general habit of growth at 
this place, and the surrounding vege- 
tation. It fails, however, to give any 
idea of the rough character of the sur- 
face of the lava. Much of the shrubbery 
had to be broken down before the tree 
could be photographed satisfactorily. 
The other trees in this group were less 
regular in form and more spreading in 
proportion to their height than the one 
shown. Mr. Hind is standing beside 
the tree. 
As a result of four years of diligent 
effort, the kokio may safely be con- 
sidered now to have passed beyond the 
danger of extinction. It is to be hoped 
that equally successful efforts will be 
made to save other wild relatives of 
cultivated plants, not only from senti- 
mental reasons but because any one of 
them, even the least promising in ap- 
pearance, may turn out, in the hands of 
plant breeders, to be of great value to 
the world’s agriculture. 
New Publication on Eugenics 
“Eugenical News,” a bi-monthly newspaper published by the Eugenics Record 
Office, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, 
its first volume, under date of January, 1916. 
Primarily intended to disseminate news about the Record Office, it will 
inches. 
N. Y., has appeared in the first issue of 
It covers four pages, six by nine 
also include within its scope news of the progress of eugenic research in general, 
of new laws and institutions which bear on eugenics, and ‘“‘facts as to differential 
fecundity, facts as to the control of the death rate of different social classes and of 
national immigration and emigration.” 
