(+
ites
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 31ST JULY, 1880.
:
Paragraph 14.
Looking to the exposure of most of these it would be necessary to plant be trees somewhat thickly, so as to enable them shelter one another; not less than four should planted to every hundred feet square, or, ther words, 1,740 to the acre.'
C
Paragraph 16.
in
"I should explain that one of the reasons why lanting has been hitherto conducted upon such sorry scale in this Colony, is to be found in the mallness of the Government nursery at Soo- conpò, which will not hold more than fifteen housand seedlings, and which is therefore unable o accommodate one year's sowing and the pre- eding year's trees at one and the same time. The process of transplanting sometimes over two months, and
extends
owing
to the young plants being still in their beds often is late as March, there is no ground available in which to sow the seeds that should be germinat- ing in February."
577
On account of the great steepness of our mountain slopes, the shelter which very small trees afford each other cannot be said to be any- thing at all; even if they were only one foot apart, the top of the lower tree would only be at about the base of the upper one; therefore its being impossible for trees of one foot high to shelter each other, the question of shelter may be left out of consideration altogether. 1,210 trees to an acre is quite enough, as I found from careful observation, and with a view to the greatest use which can be made of the thinnings when the trees require such treatment. To plant the five thousand acres proposed, we thus reduce the number of trees needed from about eight and a half millions to six millions.
It was a mistake to suppose that this was one of the reasons why tree-planting had not been conducted on a larger scale. The nursery at Sookonpò will accommodate nearly 50,000 trees at one time, instead of 15,000 as here stated. In the year 1875, we planted from that nursery 19,796 trecs, and then not half of the ground was occupied with trees. The reason that no more trees were propagated, was because we had not sufficient money. Although I had repre- sented to Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY the importance of extending tree-planting operations, His Ex- cellency did not appear to be sufficiently inter- ested in the work o adopt the suggestion. The following is a return of the number of trees planted, and the cost of the work for four years. This includes the maintenance of all trees in streets and roads, as well as mountain planting:-
Number of Trees planted.
Year.
Cost.
1873,
1874,
1875,
1876,
.10,337 ....
4,970
.21,899
.10,770 ....
.$361.41
356.03
629.93
569.52
".
Paragraph 19.
To turn out as many as five hundred thou- and trees every spring, a nursery containing 14 15 acres would be required; also the annual -rvices of sixty coolies for one month to collect els, as well as sixty coolies for two months to holes, to wap up and bind the plants with aw, and to convey them to their destinations.”.
After street and road trees were provided for. we spent the balance of money for hill planting. The trees were usually in the nursery beds mucli later than the time-March--which Mr. PRICE · gives. We usually did not commence to plant Pinus Sinensis before April, and sometimes not before the middle of June, and we planted up to the end of July.
The ground required would be about twenty- two acres. Half of the number of coolies stated for seed collecting should be sufficient, but about ten times the number estimated for digging holes. &c., would be required.
13. Having now dealt with the more important parts of Mr. PRICE's report of his views in refer- to free-planting, before commencing operations I will state the result of the work performed, so fur the limited, but nevertheless the most important, facts are available. I have recently been over most the ground planted, and from observations made in thirteen different places, which would fairly represent whole, I found that about seventy five per cent of the trees planted were dead. On the hills near Manchai Gap, the deaths amounted to about ninety per cent. Of the twenty five per cent which were sve, a great number appeared so very sickly that there was Httle promise of their surviving. The