The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-12-09
Coffee Planters Have Reclaimed
Forests Of OIaa.
SECOND REUNION OF PIONEERS.
InCo a Floral Bower-Banquet.
Toasts and Dancing-Brief Descrip-
tion of Work That Has Been Done.

Many of the readers of the ADvER-
TIsER and GAZETTE have been to the
volcano from Hilo, and will recollect
that they followed a mule trail most
of the way from about the eleventh
mile to the volcano. This trail led
over bare volcanic rock (pahoehoe),
and pa ssing few houses on the way
inhabited by native families, and on
the right hand of this trail and eX-
tending to near the volcano a belt of
forest land, consisting of tall ohia
trees, and an almost impenetrable
jungle of ferns and ia-ia vines, in fact,
= mysterious region of forest, and
quite as much unknown as the vast
extent of forest situated in Central
Africa and des cribed by Stanley and
other explorers.
This stretch of forest was many
miles in length, and of unknown
breadth, containing a vast acreage,
and had never been penetrated ex-
cept by few bird catchers and ma
| tives, and then only on the outskirts,
and its inhabitants were the feathered
songsters of brilliant plumage, birds
which seek and prefer the solitude of
a vast jungle, and which are seldom
seen in the vicinity of the baunts of
man.
This vast mysterious forest is Oaa,
and as it was scarcely more than three
years ago How is il today?
| 1t would seem almost as if we were
/ 1ixyi in n ond N nnnnIn
such as is described in the Arabian
Nights and that the magician had
waived his wand over the scene and
effected magically the present trans
formation. This vast mysterious re-
| gion of forest within the short space of
three years is now traversed by q
splendid and costly macadamized road,
equal in all respects to Honolulu
roadway, and on each side OF this road,
for the entire distance through the
| forest belt, are the clearings and resi-
dences of the pioneers who are effect
ing this magic transformation.
There is almost a continuous belt of
coffee trees, broken only in places by
the strip of forest usually left between
| the different holdings to act as a break
wind for the better protection Of the
coffee trees, but hidden in great meas
ure from the view of tourists who
travel to the volcano by the strip of
forest, $50 feet in width, reserved by
the Government in order to preserve
| the natural beauty of the original
wilderness. This reserved strip is
| broken, however, in places, wherever
there is residence, by openings,
which extend to the road, and which
| give view of the coffee fields lying
in the rear and of the snow-clad
| Mauna Kea. In connection with the
above, and to show what has been
done and what can be done, | cannot
refrain from quoting a paragraph from
a Clemorial to the Crown Land Com
missioners which went from here less
| than one year ago:
| s'That we believe that this arrange
ment as outlined by us would give us
bits of forest land, open spots where
| would be built pretty hOmesteads,
surrounded with fruits and flowers, an
unobstructed and far reaching view of
the extensive coffee plantations, to be,
we hope, in the near future, with their
wealth of color, the glossy green leaf,
the suow-white and fragrant blossom,
and the crimson ripe berry ready for
the harvest, and in the distant back
ground the swelling slopes and hoary
snOw-clad SUBMITS of those magnifi-
cent twin mOnarchs of the Pacific
Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea We
submit, gentlemen, that a view like
this, which can be had, and that in the
near future, if you will only allow us
to make it, would be far more attract
i've. Hawaii needs in
telligent, progressive Anglo Saxon
citizens, who hope and expect to pass
their lives here, and who will leave
children behind them to fill their
places"
l quote the above paragraphs to
show what this N.Y. terious forest of
Olaa needed in order to transform it
into a verltable Garden of Eden. We
now have the class of people [ have
just described above. There are none
more intelligent and progressive on
the face of the earth, and more of the
same class are being constantly at
tracted here, and the Transformation
has begun and is already we'll under
way, and all in the way of an attract
i've view as described above has been
brought to pass in many instances
and will become general in the near
future. OF course all this improve
ment and progress which is going on
all around could not take place with
out the help and co operation OF a
friendly and able Government and
Legislature, and that we have.
The residents of Olaa nearly two