The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-05-06
FOREST CULTURE.

Of forest culture on our Islands as one deserving
of the consideration of government, by which to
stay the fast approaching doom of sterility
that the needless destruction of them is surely at
last to entail; and if we still repeat the warning,
we do it with a firm conviction of the general
ignorance that prevails upon the subject, and
the necessity from many points of view, that
this ignorance and apathy should be replaced
by all the enlightenment that any concerned
in the welfare of the nation are in a position
to give.
The subject is now being recognized in all
lands where enlightenment prevails, as one of
paramount Importance, especially when facilities
for extensive manufactures exist, as now, instead
of human labor, steam has been substituted as
the working drudge but without the heat force
stored up in the fuel burned, the mechanical
force of steam could never be obtained, and this
is the far shadowing dread with which the ulti-
mate extinction of the coal beds of the world are
regarded by those who can entertain ideas
beyond their own personality.
1t is estimated bya writer in the Edinburgh
Review that the entire coal supply of the world
and that in the United Kingdom in a third or
iOullh u llidb l+WC. Gays lnC SAINT "EitcE.
/" 1t may matter little to any ordinary apprecia-
ton, so that we are unlikely to witness the
exhaustion, or the panic of exhaustion of our
own coal fields in our OWL time, by how many
centuries of consumption we guage the coal
supply of the world.
"Such will not be the case with the statesman
or the philosopher to the man who loves his
country, who seeks to serve her, and who desires
to leave to history the name of statesman or Of
patriot" Whether we live to see such days or
not, to us the fact must be patent, that deprived
of our wood, coal will at last come into demand !;
and as that is every day increasing in price
according to its increasing scarcity we, though SO
apparently isolated, will be made to bear our
proportion of the common burden of the world
in this matter.
In 1860 the export price of coal in Great
Britain, was 9.6l shillings per ton. In 1874
it was II. % s~hillings.
The writer before referred to, from elaborate
figures, estimates that, in Great Britain, the
rise in the price of coal will have to equal four
times its actual export value, before timber is
likely to be introduced as a competing fuel.
Let us remember that four times it's existing
value there means, four times its existing value
here, which would bring it somewhere in the
vicinity of fifty dollars per ton.
Expense of fuel is now greatly complained of
in our largest manufacturing interests; wood and
coal are both increasing in value, and at the rate
our forests are burned out of large timber, and
the young forests are being trodden out and
eaten down by cattle and other animals, it is
quite likely that coal at a greater cost viii be
- rG--- ri Z U-oo Az, consideration obnuId
make us lookf ahead but aside from this,
are other considerations which should make the
diligent culture of forests an object with US
second to none in Importance.
1t is not timber alone, We want; but uni
formity of climate; freedom from thoughts and
floods, and fertility, are equally worthy of care
full consideration, and security of these can be
accomplished in no other way than as they are
attained in other countries, viz by forest regula-
tons that economist the cutting of timber,
a%fording protection to sapplings and providing
for the systematic replanting of valuable seeds
and seedlings. Our climate and soil are, by our
geographical position, second to those Of few
countries for their adaptability to the culture of
the valuable fruits and woods of the tropics,
while in localities, from the difference in tenn
perature according to altitude, many of the
fruits and grains of more temperate regions,
might be grown with tOlerable success. The
philosophy of these effects of forests is simple,
and to be comprehended before an understanding
can be arrived at, of the great stress now being
everywhere laid upon the subject,
The natural forest acts as a check on the too
rapid evaporation, and carrying off by streams,
of the rainfall on the surface of the land.
As the rain descends, it is gradually conveyed
by the leaves of the trees to the dense under
growth of shrubs, and the deeaying vegetation
living in layers below, meeting beneath this
again. the vegetable mould, which acts as a
snopoe to retain the moisture thus received.
Bv these, aided by the roots of the trees, the
moisture is transferred TO the depths of the
earth, and a reservoir of springs is thus formed,
which keeps up a perennial supply of water to
the lower land. But rain, falling on a bare
surface of cleared land, is led off at once by the
nearest water-courses, and none is retained to
keep up the flow during the dry seasons of the
wear. Besides which, evaporation is so much
more abundant from land unscreened from the
rays of the sun by a clothing of forests and the
flow of surface water tends to sweep away the
clothing of soil and render q district utterly
barren.
There is no doubt that this is one of the main
causes. in billy countries, Of drought and foods.
sin France. for instance. since the mountains
of Aure1qne and Forey have been SO dennded
of forests, the Loire has been constantly Hooded,
occasionine vast destruction of property and
life.
algeria, has had frequent d~roughts, and