The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1877-02-03

WOOD AND WATER are the life of any country ;
without wood and water neither man nor beast
can long exist anywhere, and vegetation-even
of the commonest weed-becomes impossible.
Without water there can be no wood, and with
out wood no water, and the absence of both
means a barren waste, q dry Sahara, a field
of death.
In view of the tour of inspection upon the
other islands about to be undertaken by the
Commissioners recently appointed in accordance
with an act "To aid the Development of the
Resources of the Kingdom it occurs to US
that among their duties should be that of a
careful examination of localities with a view of
deciding upon such as may afford facilities for
the construction of natural reservoirs of rain
water in those regions that are peculiarly liable
to seasons of drought. This system has been
followed for many years in Europe, where espe-
cialy in Switzerland and the Tyrol are found
numerous reservoirs, which receive the rainfall
or the water from the melting SHOWS and
glaciers, and from which it is distributed upon
the cultivated lands In Ao4ioO, also, such
reservoirs are found, often of great extent, and
are formed by closing up the entrances of valleys
surrounded by mountains. Instances are re-
corded where the existence of such reservoirs in
the latter country has proved the preservation
of many thousands of animals during long con-
tinued seasons of drought. 1t is quite probable
that our Commissioners will meet with many
valleys among the mountains of these islands
where a small outlay of labor would suffice to.
create magazines of water to be used in case
of necessity in farming operations on the lower
lands, or in the way Of replanting forests, or in
creating q forest where none now exists-where
the land is entirely barren, as at Waikiki near
Honolulu, or upon the sandy plains between
Waikiki and Ulupalakua. What a beneficial
change might be created at the latter pointin a
very few years, and with a very small outlay!
Leaving out of the question the theory about
increasing the rainfall, the prospective value Of
the frewood that would be afforded should de-
mand attention. IF that region were planted
with seeds of the algaroba, dropped in a furrow
made with a two-horse pillow, planting say fifty
acres at a time, and fencing with wire, the fence
to be moved on to another fifty acres after the
plants had had two or three years growth-the
dreary waste would soon become a place of
beauty and value.
A correspondent at Makawao informs US that
on the 9th of January there fell in that district,
3.25 inches of rain, extending over an area Of
at least five miles square. Now the above
amount of water would fill a tank 5000 feet
square and twenty feet deep-if we had the
tank. The rains that do the most good are of
course those that fall gently, when every cubic
inch sinks into the ground the destructive rains
are those that " pour" for then the landowner
sees the best of his hillside soil carried down to
the low lands, to his loss. Just how much of
the top soil is thus carried away may be roughly
estimated by noticing the rapidity with which
hollows in the face of the ground in the wake
of freshets are filled with silt, and how denuded
of earth the bare hillsides become. If the cul-
tiyation of trees and shrubs afforded no other
result, their Office as arresters of escaping soil
would, of itself, be of inestimable value.