i8o 
FOREST  PLANTING  ON  OAHU . 
By  C.  A.  Brown. 
At  a public  hearing  of  the  House  Committee  on  Agriculture 
and  Forestry,  Promotion  and  Immigration,  held  on  March  8, 
1909,  Mr..  C.  A.  Brown  of  Honolulu  spoke  in  regard  to  forest 
planting  now  being  done  by  the  Ii  Estate  on  the  land  of  Wai- 
pio,  in  the  Ewa  district,  on  the  island  of  Oahu,  as  follows: 
The  Chairman  (Mr.  R.  W.  Shingle)  : “The  committee  has 
two  more  speakers  that  we  want  to  hear  from.  One  thing 
about  this  bill  that  appeals  to  the  committee  is  that  the  Gov- 
ernor has  asked  for  an  appropriation  of  $88,000  to  maintain  the 
Board  of  Agriculture  and  Forestry  for  the  next  two  years. 
We  find  that  if  this  bill  could  be  enacted  into  law,  one-quarter 
going  to  the  conservation  of  natural  resources  and  forestry 
would  give  us  $150,000,  which  in  a conference  with  the  Gov- 
ernor he  agreed  that  if  needs  be  to  meet  the  current  revenues, 
the  item  which  he  asked  for  for  the  Board  of  Agriculture  and 
Forestry  could  be  included  in  this  bill.  There  would  have  to 
be  some  amendments  to  the  bill  if  it  passed  that  way. 
“The  committee  asked  Mr.  Brown,  who  has  been  doing  con- 
siderable reforestation  on  private  lands  at  pivate  expense  to 
come  here  and  explain  to  the  committee  what  he  has  done  in 
a short  time  in  the  way  of  reforestation,  and  the  committee 
would  also  like  to  know,  Mr.  Brown,  what  would  be  your  idea 
in  the  way  of  reforesting  and  protecting  our  forests,  out  of 
this  appropriation.  As  I meant  to  say,  the  Superintendent  of 
Forestry,  Professor  Hosmer,  has  an  idea  that  the  best  way  to 
look  after  the  forests  would  be  to  have  employed  rangers,  so 
many  on  Hawaii,  so  many  on  Maui,  so  manv  on  Kauai  and  so 
many  on  (Tahu,  who  would  be  engaged  daily  in  the  work  of 
patroling  the  forests,  keeping  stock  out  of  the  forests,  prevent- 
ing fires,  etc.,  and  the  committee  is  desirous  of  knowing  what 
you  think  of  that  scheme.” 
Mr.  C.  A.  Brown : “I  can  only  speak  from  my  own  personal 
knowledge  and  the  work  we  are  doing  at  Waipio.  That  is  in 
the  district  of  Ewa.  I believe  that  we  were  the  first  people  to 
fence  in  the  forest.  That  was  in  1895,  but  we  have  great  dif- 
ficulty in  keeping  out  the  wild  cattle.  There  were  trails 
through  the  mountains  from  Kalihi  clear  to  Waialua  that  cat- 
tle are  continually  coming  in  by.  We  generally  take  two  trips 
a year  and  shoot  out  the  wild  cattle.  About  six  years  ago  I 
planted  quite  a number  of  trees  at  our  mountain  house,  that 
has  an  elevation  of  about  900  feet,  and  watched  the  different 
trees  to  see  which  would  do  the  best.  We  found  that  the 
Eucalyptus  robusta  far  exceeded  other  trees  in  growth,  so  on  the 
first  of  February  last  year  I employed  Mr.  Willing  and  his 
two  sons  and  two  Chinese.  It  took  us  a little  over  three 
