THE  NEED  OF  PRACTICAL  ACTIVITY. 
By  Augustus  F.  Knudsen. 
It  is  time  that  the  forest  reserves  laid  out  on  paper  are 
actually  taken  care  of  and  really  put  in  a position  to  recover  and 
increase.  Enough  has  been  said  by  the  men  who  know ; by 
Mr.  Hosmer,  our  Forester,  and  others  to  show  what  has  been 
done  for  our  forests,  in  the  last  few  years,  and  why  a forest 
is  of  value  in  protecting  the  rivers,  to  catch  the  attention  of 
and  convince  the  general  public  that  something  must  be  done. 
Some  wish  to  go  more  deeply  into  the  matter,  understand 
what  the  local  forest  area  was,  what  it  is,  and  where  the  local- 
ities are  situated  that  require  prompt  attention. 
STOPPING  THE  WASTE. 
It  is  well  to  remember  that  the  Land  Commissioner  and  the 
Superintendent  of  Public  Works  need  the  backing  of  an  en- 
lightened public  opinion  if  they  are  to  properly  enforce  the 
spirit  of  the  long  Government  leases  against  the  wanton 
waste  of  the  forests  on  Government  leased  land.  A large 
number  of  watersheds  on  each  and  every  island  are  leased  as 
a whole  to  private  parties.  On  these  the  wild  cattle,  which 
are  practically  worthless,  are  allowed  to  destroy  the  forests 
and  irreparable  damage  will  be  done  before  the  leases  expire. 
The  presence  of  these  cattle  is  unwarranted ; they  bring  no 
income  to  the  lessees,  in  fact,  they  jeopadize  the  incomes  from 
the  water-rights.  But  somehow  it  seems  impossible  to  get 
anyone  to  defray  the  expense  of  exterminating  them,  and  the 
expense  of  building  fences  which  will  prevent  the  tame  cattle 
on  lower  levels  going  wild  again. 
Cattle  become  wild  very  soon  when  they  get  into  the  forests 
where  herding  and  driving  are  impossible.  The  question  of 
the  devastation  done  by  wild  goats  is  almost  as  great  a one. 
They,  too,  are  a menace  to  the  usefulness  of  the  streams  and 
especially  to  the  steeper  mountain  sides  in  the  dry  districts. 
The  vegetation  being  removed  the  soil  is  washed  off  and  the 
valleys  below  filled  up,  the  stream  beds  choked  by  the  masses 
of  boulders  and  gravel  that  fall  down  as  soon  as  the  binding 
sod  is  removed. 
On  Kauai  the  harbor  of  Waimea  has  been  almost  ruined  by 
the  silting  up  of  the  bay.  This  silt  comes  from  the  canon 
walls,  and  only  since  the  disappearance  of  the  forest.  Prior 
to  the  inroads  of  the  goats  the  floods  were  clear — clean  water 
only  flowed  off  from  the  wooded  and  grassy  slopes. 
“Since  the  coming  of  the  white  man,  have  our  floods  turned 
red,”  said  an  old  inhabitant  of  upper  Waimea  in  1886.  An 
unconscious  sarcasm  on  the  wastefulness  and  short-sighted 
policy  of  the  white  man’s  way  of  doing  business. 
