68
HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
216 acres were under water-chestnuts for export to the United States. This is an increase of 64.8% over the previous year. The average yield is 30 piculs per tauchung (10.7 tons per acre) and the cash return $40-45 per picul (30¢ to 33.7¢ per lb.). The crop is grown under the same conditions as rice and supplants the second rice crop.
Animals
Pigs and all kinds of poultry, including quail, are the principal food animals reared. The hill country is too steep and too small in area to support grazing animals such as beef-cattle or sheep. The local cattle (used for draft and beef, but not for milk) are small hardy animals, suited for work in the small terraced fields typical of a large part of the Colony's cultivated area.
Recent estimates of the animal population of the Colony
are:
Cattle and buffalo
(working animals)
9,000
Dairy cattle
2,800
Pigs
50,000
Fowl
500,000
Ducks
100,000
Quail
85,000
Pigeons
22,000
Geese
1,000
Turkeys
1,000
Goats
300
Rabbits
2,000
There is one large dairy farm and several smaller ones. Dairy cattle are mainly Holstein, Ayrshire, and Shorthorns, originally imported from Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, and revived from time to time by the importation of fresh stock. The animals are stall-fed and rarely leave their byres. Production is maintained by the feeding of imported fodder and concentrates, supplemented by locally-grown guinea grass. All animals are tested for freedom from tuber- culosis, but only a few of the larger farms maintain tubercle- free herds.
Specialist breeders are responsible for most of the pig and poultry raising, which is on the intensive system. There is scope for rearing more pigs and poultry among small farmers, but hitherto farmers whose main crop is rice have