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Report of the Forest Nurseryman. 



Honolulu, Hawaii, December 31, 1912. 



R. S. Hosmer, Esq., 



Superintendent of Forestry, 

 Honolulu, Hawaii. 



Dear Sir: I herewith submit a report of the work done at 

 the Government Nursery and Makiki Station, etc., for the years 

 1911 and 1912. 



NURSERY. 



Collection and Exchange of Seeds. 



The collection is done principally by two boys who have to be 

 proficient in the climbing of trees. This work can be done more 

 economically and safer with two working together than one. 

 One boy climbs the tree and the other directs where the best seeds 

 are. He also gathers up the seed that is thrown down. We 

 have found that it is necessary to have two together when climb- 

 ing in case of accidents. We are glad to say that so far we have 

 not had any serious accidents although the boys have had several 

 bad falls. 



The most of the seed is collected in and around Honolulu. A 

 great deal of our Eucalyptus, also Koa, is collected on Tantalus. 

 Mr. J. F. Rock, Botanist, collected and handed to us large quanti- 

 ties of indigenous seed of rare plants. This has been distributed to 

 people who were particularly anxious to get seed of the native 

 plants of the Islands. The cleaning and drying of the seed is 

 done at the nursery and this work takes a great deal of time, 

 some of the seed being quite difficult to separate from the pods 

 or seed vessels. Some varieties, however, are easily handled. The 

 seed boys also prepare packages for mailing and for distributing 

 to people who may call at the Nursery. 



Exchange of Seed. 



During the period covered by this report we have had letters 

 from a number of Botanic Gardens and Experiment Stations in 

 addition to our regular list asking that they be put upon our seed 

 exchange list. We have also received numerous printed lists giv- 

 ing the names, of hundreds of species which would be mailed to 

 us free upon application. We have not taken advantage of these" 

 offers of seed for the reason that we are not equipped sufficiently 



