THE JHAWAIIAN 
rORESTER J AGRICULTURIST 
VoL. VIII SEPTEMBER, 1910 No. 9 
ADDITIONS TO FOUR FOREST RESERVES. 
The forest reserve system of the Territory of Hawaii is slowly 
being brought into final form. By a proclamation signed by 
Governor Frear on August 25, 1910, all the government lands 
included within the boundaries of the established forest reserves 
are now technically set apart. 
When the forest reserve law was passed in 1903 only unleased 
lands or those on which the lease ran out within two years could 
be set apart. In 1907 the law was so amended as to permit the 
formal reservation, subject to existing leases, of any government 
land whether under lease or not. 
In some of the first created reserves it followed that there were 
government lands not technically set apart. The action of Gov- 
ernor Frear gives to these tracts a legal forest status and puts 
an end to uncertainty regarding them. In accordance with the 
regular usage the formal setting apart of unreserved lands in 
the Hilo, the Kau and the Hamakua-Pali forest reserves on Ha- 
waii and the Ewa forest reserve on Oahu was considered at a 
public hearing held on August 20, 1910, along with agreements 
for the setting apart of Kahoolawe as a forest reserve. 
THE CACTUS DISCOUNTED. 
An article in the Bulletin of the Imperial Institute disposes 
rather effectually of certain extravagant claims regarding the 
economic value of the prickly pear. The first claim answered 
is that from one ton of prickly pear seven gallons of alcohol 
could be prepared at a cost not exceeding 3s. 6d. per gallon, 
whilst the refuse could be made into a nutritious cattle food. 
'‘Alcohol of 90 per cent.,” it is answered, “can be manufac- 
tured from cheap materials, such as maize and potatoes, at a 
cost of from 6d. to Is. per gallon, depending on the market 
price of the raw materials and other local factors. It is evi- 
dent, therefore, that the production of spirit from prickly 
pear juice could only be remunerative in a country which 
had no other crops available for the purpose, and which had 
a heavy duty on imported alcohol. IMoreover, the researches 
