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his plantation. Let every land owner have in mind the condition 
of his forest holdings. Are your forests, and through them 
your streams, receiving the protection that the best interests of 
the plantation demand to be given them? Is there not some- 
where a place where a short stretch of fence would shut off and 
protect a large area of forest? Are there not areas of waste 
land that if protected would grow up again with native forest, or 
that could be planted with useful trees of commercial value? 
These, gentlemen, are practical questions. I put them to you 
because I believe they are of real and vital moment. Every one 
can be translated directly into terms of money and everything 
done is for your own benefit. Can you afford not to take account 
of these realizable assets? 
It is not within the scope of this talk to go into details of what 
should be done in this or that place, or to prescribe ways and 
means. By this time every one now in Hawaii likely to need 
such service, ought to know that the staff of the Division of 
Forestry is always ready to advise forest owners how best to 
care for their forests and where, when and how to plant trees 
on their areas of waste land to get certain desired results. The 
object today is not to give such advice. What I have tried to do 
rather, is to set each man thinking if there is not forest work on 
his own land that if it were done would increase the value of 
his property ; that if it is not done, will result in its depreciation. 
I do not forget that much excellent forest work has been done 
by private interests in Hawaii and that the last year has been 
marked by a gratifying increase in forest planting by numerous 
plantation companies. But it is not enough. Every plantation 
company that has waste land ought each year to plant up definite 
areas with forest trees quite as regularly as it harvests its cane. 
It ought also — and of the two this is the more imperative — to 
fence off and efficiently protect the areas of native forest from 
which come its supplies of water. From my knowledge of the 
Territory I am positive that to incur the expense necessary to 
get such work started is in every case a good investment. It is 
for your own interest, gentlemen, that I ask you to give these 
subjects thought. Forestry in Hawaii is not a matter for any 
one man or set of men ; it is one that in its results affects us all. 
The purpose of conservation is so to use the natural resources 
that first and foremost we ourselves may derive the fullest benefit 
from them today, but also that we may then pass them on, unim- 
paired, so that those who come after us may continue to enjoy 
the same benefits. Let us, here in Hawaii, look to it, each man 
on his own land, but all working together to a common end, that 
every one is doing his part to conserve through wise use the 'most 
important of our natural resources, the forests and waters of 
Hawaii nei. 
