The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-03-16


shade trees escape the serious inconvenience 0
the fierce summer sun and the sweeping winds o
winter. The man who follows this course /
very soon rewarded for the labor expended b.
the increased comfort which speedily surround
his family and home. The additional value to
homestead SO situated will be appreciated by thc
owner who desires to sell, when he finds that fol
this sole reason the would-be purchaser is willing
to offer much more favorable terms. The far
mers who plant these protective belts will fud
that they have added from ten to twenty-five pei
cent. to the productive capacity Of their farms,
and their growing timber, if of the right sort,
will give an added value to their lands in ten OF
fifteen years of fully twenty-five per cent. while the
trimmings from the timber will more than com
pensate them for the labor expended in the cul-
tlVatlon. These facts seem sufficient to induce
every owner of land to engage in the cultivation
Of timber upon his premises; but if we add to
them the effects in a sanitary view the argument
becomes still more conclusive.
In the first place it is self-evident that a boun-
tiful supply of water is necessary to the comfort
and health of every community. An eminent
German writer (~Ebermayer) has deduced the
following result from his meteorological obserya-
tlons on forestry:
"H from the soil of an open space 100 parts
OF water evaporate, then from the soil of a forest
free from underwood SO parts would evaporate,
and from a soil covered with underwood only Is
parts would evaporate."
This simple fact explains very clearly why the
cutting down of wood over tracts of country is
always followed by the drying up of wells and
springs, and demonstrates the wrong We infict
upon our children by so doing. This point needs
no further calculation.
In India, the home of cholera, much impor-
lance has been attached in recent times to plan
rations as preventives of it. 1t has been always
observed that the villages in wooded districts
suffer less than those in treeless plains. Many
instances of this are given in the reports of DR..
Dryden, President of the Statistical Office in
Calcutta, and DR.. Murray, Inspector of Hos
pitfalls. DR.. Dryden states, in his work on
{" Epidemic Cholera in the Bengal Presidency,
1863" that in the villages in the plain of Raj
poor, 20 or 20 per cent of the inhabitants are
swept away by cholera IN three or
four days, while the wooded district of Sandal
poor is often free from it, or it is much less
~ YIN hOh3 ndOCC CADCElCuCC CDIlLicS
them to speak with authority on this point, we
believe coincide in the opinion that an open
suffers much more severely In a vista
ton of this terrible epidemic than those regions
a fair proportion of the original forests
has been suffered to remain.
There is no doubt that trees, plants and shrub
berry affect the conformation of the soil, with
which our general health is in many respects
and are beneficial in other ways,
among which may be mentioned, their cooling
shade in summer and diminishing the winds of
winter, and clouds of dust. We learn from Eber-
(above quoted) that the temperature of
trees in a forest, and even In the tops of
is always lower than the air in the forest.
The proofs of the beneficial influence of forests
md shrubbery upon the water supply and gen.
'ral comfort and consequent health of the people
an be multiplied almost without end. We
hInk our community are united in this view,
nd require no further illustration of this partic-
liar point; yet We will add that numerous facts
re cited by the Australian explorer, Lands
which go to prove that dense forests are
n the increase in Australia that the climate is
moister, and that even the great central
vi HoJ III OOuIcS u IluCy DeCOme lDDaDlta- |
lie. The frequency of fires, prior to the intro
uction Of sheep-farmiDg, when there was moth
e to keep down the grass, was terribly destruc-
We to trees and to all vegetation.
An act was passed by our Legislative Assem-
OF 1916, which was a step in the right direc-
on, so for as it went. 1t was styled IAN Act
r the Protection and Preservation of Woods
I'd Forests" and the preamble r~ecites that, {" 1t
an established fact that the destruction of for
is in any country tends to diminish the supply
water; therefore" etc. If the necessary an |
had been made to enable the Minister
the Interior to carry out the law, we think its
nehclal effects would be even now becoming ap-
rent; but for want of the necessary funds he :
8 been obliged to allow the law to remain a
ad letter.
We have written at some length upon this SUBJ
t; we do not leave it because it is exhausted by I
y means. We have only touched upon some =
its more salient points with a hope to re-
AIKEN the public mind to its great Importance
connected with our future welfare, and by =
nging it fairly before the public, to unite the 4
ger and more influential minds among our peo- "
IN a demand upon the Legislature, soon to ~,
emble, that they shall take hold of the subject -
q manner commensurate with its urgency.
halfway legislation will satisfy their con-
Is there one single man, whose home
IN these, even yet beautiful Isles, who is will 1
to see the fate of Palmyra and Tyre become r,
irs God forbid. -
those OF our readers who desire to peruse an
article upon this subject, are referred :
! paper in the Popular Science Monthly writ
by Max Won Pettenkofer, entitled 81 The Hy-
mic Influence of Plants"