27S 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



FOREST TRAIL THROUGH A KUKUI GROVE 



Note the shade and the beautiful undergrowth. Here the rainfall reaches the maximum, the annual 

 precipitation is astounding, attaining a yearly average of several hundred inches. 



oped in dense layers 

 of delicate, water- 

 saturated vegeta- 

 tion. One may pull 

 off a great handful 

 of this material and 

 wring a stream of 

 water from it as one 

 would wring a wet 

 sponge. These 

 clumps and fes- 

 toons are veritable 

 creations of the 

 mist beautiful 

 translucent green, 

 and exquisitely 

 delicate in the form 

 and texture of their 

 foliage. Many of 

 the epithytic ferns 

 are so small, fragile and translucent that they resemble 

 large mosses rather than ferns. 



The forest is composed of a considerable variety of 

 short, gnarled trees and tall, stout shrubs. In stature 

 it contrasts strikingly with the very tall tropical forests 

 of such regions as the Amazons and Java. It is a 

 dwarf forest, a stunted formation, appearing very 

 rich when viewed from the lowlands, but under close 

 inspection revealing all the ecologic earmarks of re- 

 strained development under relatively adverse con- 

 ditions. The steep slopes which it covers; the thin, wet, 

 humus-lacking soil; the comparatively low temperatures; 

 the poor insulation due to prevailing fogs; the repres- 

 sive influence of strong continuous winds; the endless 

 repetition of landslides and reforesting, as the valleys 

 relentlessly eat back into the mountains; all of these 

 conditions have tended to prevent the growth of large 

 trees. The average thickness, or height, of the Oahu 

 forest blanket is well under thirty feet. This con- 

 trasts with the splendid ohia lehua forests on the 

 island of Hawaii, which rise to a height of one 

 hundred feet, many individual trees attaining one 

 hundred and fifty feet. 



In these forests there are absolutely none of the 

 familiar continental trees, and none of Hawaii's indig- 

 enous trees occur upon the mainland. The old-time 

 Hawaiians were good woodsmen, and had specific names 

 for most of the trees; for example, kukui, koa, lehua, 

 hoawa, alani, hame, kawau, olomea, ohe-ohe, lapa-lapa, 



pukeawe, lama, 

 kopiko, etc. The 

 forest canopy is a 

 rich blending of 

 greens of many 

 hues, but these hues 

 are its only wealth. 

 In blossoms it is 

 poverty -stricken. 

 Like the tropical 

 forests of many 

 other regions, it is 

 a flowerless forest. 

 Not botanically 

 flowerless, for of 

 course every plant 

 at its season puts 

 forth flower and 

 fruit, but flowerless 

 in the artistic sense. 

 The flowers are, with few exceptions, small, greenish, in- 

 conspicuous, infrequent, scentless. One may clamber all 

 day along the steep ridges of Oahu's rain forest, and see 

 scarcely a dozen beautiful blossoms. 



Many of the wooded slopes are exceedingly steep. 

 These forested walls are so precipitous, and mask so many 

 impassable cliffs, that the phrase "tapestry forest" cor- 

 rectly designates their aborescent drapery. One's first 

 trips are made in momentary expectation of seeing the 

 thickly wooded cliffsides drop down like a green garment, 

 and expose the naked brown lava-body below. This very 

 stripping off of the forest does occur, not in any spectacular 

 manner, but intermittently here and there throughout 

 the range. The slippery soil is a thin and easily-separated 

 skin over the lava substratum from which it is decomposed. 

 During the rainy season, when the whole range is water- 

 soaked, landslides are common. They usually start near 

 the top of a slope and cut straight narrow wounds down 

 through the forest blanket. Sometimes a single hillside 

 will be scarred by a dozen of these savage claw-marks ; ad- 

 jacent slopes may long remain unscathed. The scars vary 

 in width from twenty to one hundred and fifty feet, and in 

 length from several hundred to a thousand feet. They cut 

 through to bed-rock, like a slash to the bone, and are there- 

 fore slow to heal. Little by little the mosses, ferns, and 

 grasses creep over the raw rock, and finally, after many 

 seasons, the moist forest closes above the ancient wound. 

 Thus the perennial green tapestry mends its own rents, and 

 so serenely beautifies the fire-built Pacific Islands. 



fXN parts of the Angeles National Forest in California 

 ^-^ the packrats are so abundant that many of the young 

 pines planted by the Forest Service have been killed or 

 injured by the rodents. The damage seems to take place 

 chiefly in the late summer and fall and is more extensive 

 in dry than in wet seasons. It is thought that the rats 

 tear off the tender bark of the trees to obtain moisture 

 at times when water is scarce. 



T3ETURNS from 160 wood-pulp mills throughout the 

 ** country, received in connection with the census of 

 pulp-wood consumption and wood-pulp production being 

 made by the Forest Service in cooperation with the 

 Newsprint Manufacturers' Association, show that the 

 reporting mills used in 1913, 419,000 cords of wood 

 and had an output of approximately 2,229,000 tons of 

 pulp. 



