Hog Cholera.
As with rinderpest, this disease causes severe loss each year, but it is pleasing to note that swine breeders are realizing more and more that preventive measures are available, and if notified in time, government officers will give every assistance in controlling and combating this disease.
Poultry Section.
A poultry section has been started at Sheung Shui with a view to producing suitable birds for distribution amongst the villagers to improve the local type.
By using the breed Rhode Island Red, efforts will be made to increase the weight of the local Cantonese fowls and to stimulate egg production.
FORESTRY
Afforestation of the Colony's hillsides and protection of the trees and scrub re-growth remaining after the Japanese occupation are among the responsibilities of the Forestry Department. Before the war forestry and the supervision of the Botanical Gardens and Government grounds fell within the sphere of a Botanical and Forestry Department, but after the liberation of Hong Kong the opportunity was taken to form separate departments.
From 1937 onwards, severe inroads had been made into the Colony's wood reserves, at first by illicit tree-cutting activities on the part of the swarms of refugees who fled into the Colony after the Japanese occupation of Canton, then by the fellings to make good the deficiency in supplies of firewood caused by the Sino-Japanese war, later by the Japanese to provide fuel during the occupation period, and finally by the British Military Administration immediately afterwards. The result was that the Colony's hillsides were almost entirely denuded of trees and the catchment areas exposed to the evils of soil erosion. Consequently a great part of the Department's activities in the past three years has been concentrated upon the re-afforestation of these areas. Other activities included the removal of under-growth as an anti- malarial measure, the clearance of brushwood from the vicinity of bathing beaches, the clearing of trees from newly acquired building sites, and the planting of roadside trees both on the Island and in Kowloon.
In order to step up the production of tree seedlings for afforestation, a new method of raising seedlings was introduced to the Colony during 1947. In this method the seedlings, after being raised to about 1" in height in seed boxes, are transferred
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