83 
is of prime importance; each one knows that the roots of 
the trees must not be cut; and the benefits of fertilizers have 
been so thoroughly demonstrated that they need no further 
argument. How best to accomplish the cultivation with the 
utmost benefit to the trees, and at the smallest expense, is the 
problem to be solved, and perhaps the best way to get at 
it is for each of us to speak of our own conditions, and com- 
pare results. 
"Puna is preeminently a volcanic district; its soils are, with 
the exception of the organic matter on the surface, entirely 
of volcanic origin ; every process of the change from rock, or 
sand, to fertile soil, is here laid before us as an open book. 
The abundance of moisture combined with the warmth of 
the climate, and its freedom from winds, gives surpassing fer- 
tility, and the old saying: 'Everything grows in Puna,' is 
more than borne out by the results spread out before us on 
all but the most barren rocks ; and even among those trees 
and bushes are springing up, and in some parts dense jungles 
of lauhala are growing almost to the water's edge. 
''The enormous flows of pahoehoe and aa, the outbursts of 
sand and ashes are everywhere apparent, leaving no doubt 
whatever as to the agencies that have been at work to pro- 
duce the present conditions. Layers of pahoehoe over deep 
soil show that fertile land has been covered, and speak 
either of the vast time that must have elapsed to produce this soil, 
or of alternate outbreaks of sand and ashes and of lava. And 
with the exception of the 1840 flow, which came from Kilauea, 
and the legend of Pele chasing the chief who had bested her 
in a game, there is no record, no tradition of activity in any 
of the numerous craters in this portion of the district. 
"The action of rain on the sand and ashes beats down the 
surface and then, a little lichen or moss, a few ferns or 
shrubs, and vegetation has commenced, and the decaying 
vegetation combined with the moisture from the atmosphere, 
quickly absorbed by the sand and ashes, forms the beginning 
of a soil which deepens and increases in richness, until in 
some cases it becomes almost a muck. Such are the soils of 
our better lands, our arable lands. 
"The grinding and wearing of the rocks as they rolled or 
were pushed along, a filling-in of some of the crevices by 
weathering; the above processes repeated, followed by the 
further breaking-down, disintegration, and decomposition of 
the rocks by the roots of shrubs and young trees, form the 
beginning of our almost impenetrable forests, and with the 
abundant rainfall sufficiently account for the richness of our 
aa lands. 
"The change from the absolutely sterile rock, below porous 
as a sponge, and with every vestige of life burnt out of it, 
