248 
(2) To hire expert hunters if found necessary to exterminate 
goats. 
(3) To arrange if possible with the miUtary to aid and cut 
down expenses. 
(4) To purchase fencing material, fire-arms, ammunition, 
shoes, camping equipment, and other material needed for goat 
extermination. 
(5) To sell such equipment and with the proceeds purchase 
new material in other places. 
THE HILO FOREST RESERVE. 
By C. S. JuDD, Superintendent of Forestry. 
The Board of Agriculture and Forestry has recently completed 
a splendid piece of field work on the island of Hawaii, which 
will result in putting the Hilo Forest Reserve into a condition 
of far better protection than has hitherto been possible. 
This reserve consists of a vast jungle on the windward slopes 
of Mauna Kea and covers 111,750 acres between the elevations 
of 2,000 and 6,000 feet above sea level. Its importance as a 
water producing forest may readily be understood when it is 
known that eleven sugar plantations, from Olaa to Kaiwiki, 
depend upon the water from this reserve for their existence. 
These eleven plantations during the ten years up to 1922 pro- 
duced 1,152,068 tons of sugar or one-fifth of the total sugar 
output of the Territory. The water, so essential to the operations 
of these plantations, is used mainly for fluming cane to the mills, 
but also in the process of sugar manufacture, and for domestic 
purposes in the camps and villages where the laborers reside. 
The town of Hilo also depends upon the water which originates 
from this reserve to supply the increasing demands of its popu- 
lation and now contemplates taking an additional supply from 
the Wailuku River within the reserve. 
There are one hundred waterfalls along the makai boundary 
of this reserve, some of them such as Akaka Falls having a 
straight drop of 420 feet, and every stream of any importance 
on the island of Hawaii, with the exception of the Kohala Moun- 
tain region, has its source in this one forest reserve. 
The native forest in this reserve is fairly uniform and the 
combination of trees, tree ferns and smaller ferns, shrubs, vines, 
low-growing plants and mosses is ideal for the conservation of 
water so long as it is protected from damage by stock and other 
agencies and is allowed to thrive undisturbed. The predominant 
tree is ohia lehua, which attains huge proportions in many 
parts of the reserve. On the well drained ridges and particularly 
toward the upper edge of the reserve koa trees are found, many 
of them growing to enormous sizes. In smaller numbers and 
