^08 
OLAA FOEBST RESERVE 
It was also possible for me to give some attention to the Olaa Forest 
Reserve comprising some 20,000 acres in the heart of the Olaa tree fe.-n 
and ohia jungle and, in my opinion, very important as a conserver of 
water. Unsuccessful coffee cultivation ventures, cane planting and 
grazing have opened up the lower edge of this forest in parts in the 
back country as far up as opposite 15% to 23 miles along the Volcano 
Road. The result has been the conversion of a satisfactory water- 
conserving native jungle to a more or less open waste of abandoned 
coffee and cane fields covered with Hilo grass and dead or dying trees, 
which is supporting a few hundred head of scrubby, bedraggled cattle. 
These have so puddled the surface soil that sub-drainage has been im- 
paired and the water from the heavy rainfall with difficulty percolates 
into the subsoil. The result is that over a large area there are no 
trees to break the force of the raindrops, the rain falls on to a more or 
less impervious soil, and instead of sinking gradually into the sub- 
soil to appear lower down in springs and wells, rushes off down the 
slope on the surface in torrents with destructive erosive effect. An old 
resident of Olaa informs me that the runoff from this region is now 
three times greater than it was 25 years ago, and we all know that the 
volcano road has been torn out by floods during the past two winters. 
Back of this denuded area lies the Olaa Foresf Reserve, which was 
set aside in 1918, after the lower or makai portion comprising 8,588 acres, 
had unfortunately been leased by the Land Office for grazing purposes 
for a period of 15 years froin February 5, 1917, for $860 per annum. 
The successive holders of this General Lease No. 939 have never been 
able to get back what they have put into it. The cattle which have 
been turned loose have wandered far into the jungle, have gone wild 
and many of them have never been recovered. As a grazing lease, 
the project is a mistake, as the land is far more valual3le for forest 
purposes. It is here that an application to cut the fern trees for the 
manufacture of starch was promptly denied. 
I made a careful inspection of this particular land and found that 
it had not been completely fenced, as required by the lease, aiul that as 
a result the cattle had wandeied further back into the forest reserve. 
Moreover, I ascertained at the Hilo land office that the last holder of 
the lease. Ting Ham Ching, Avas one year in arrears w^th the rent. These 
two facts prompted me on July 25, 1922, to lay the situation before 
the Land Conimissicner and I am glad to report that on August 9 he 
cancelled the lease and gave the lessee 30 days in which to remove his 
cattle. The land now is entirely under the jurisdiction of this Board 
and the owner of cattle in the reserve has been warned to remove all of 
them at once. 
I found also that along the southern portion of this reserve there were 
stretches of boundary which required fencing to keep out homesteaders' 
stock and immediately made arrangements for building the required 
fences. One of them, in cooperation with S. Kanemori, 1.13 miles loirg, 
had already been started and completed for .30 mile. He is Avorking 
at the job alone, but is making steady progress and will have it com- 
pleted in a few months. Another stretch, in cooperation with Nicholas 
Holowaty is 2.65 miles long and so far .57 mile of line has been all 
cleared and 228 posts cut. A third stretch, 1.09 miles in length, along 
the south end of Lots 130 to 136, has government land on the other 
side of the reserve boundary and this I had Ranger Mackenzie start 
to build on July 26, with local labor. An inspection made at the end 
of the month showed that more than half of the line had been cleared 
and that 83 posts had been cut and substantially set. Owing to the 
scarcity of trees for posts here a deviation was made in the customary 
post spacing of 8 feet and 15 feet was adopted as the interval with two 
