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PRIMARY PRODUCTION
correctly and profitably. Demonstration plantations have shown quite clearly the results that can be achieved; these plantations have been useful in arousing the interest of the villagers. The Agriculture and Forestry Department also offers financial and technical aid towards establishing trial plantations within village lots. Trees take a long time to grow and it is not always easy to convince the villagers that forestry will be profitable. Interest is spreading steadily, if somewhat slowly, but it will be some years before the work now being done will begin to produce results. Some of the older stands now need their first thinning, and this will be the beginning of steady returns for the owners.
Closely connected with the Forestry Lot scheme is the Tree Planting campaign among New Territories' schools. This year individual schools organized their own tree-planting days and invited parents and local dignitaries to join them. The Department supplied trees and technical assistance and the 68 schools taking part planted nearly 6,000 trees.
In order to provide tree seedlings for afforestation, the Agricul- ture and Forestry Department maintains a series of tree nurseries in the New Territories—a main nursery of twenty three acres at Tai Lung, smaller permanent nurseries in each forest district and temporary nurseries in many of the areas now being planted. There are altogether some thirty nurseries with a total area of about forty acres. These nurseries can produce two to three million tree seedlings annually. Most of the seedlings are now raised in polythene tubes instead of open nursery beds, and constant efforts are being made to improve the techniques of handling and planting them. Trees for amenity planting are also now raised in large polythene bags rather than in the old earthenware pots.
During the dry season from October to March there is a constant threat of fire in the plantations and careful fire precautions are taken. Fire-lookouts which have been established on strategic hill-tops in the plantation areas are connected by field telephone to fire control points, where men, equipment and transport stand by during particularly dangerous periods. A system of roads, paths and fire-barriers is also maintained to help fire fighting. During the winter 1959-60 a total of 133 fires were reported, affecting over 2,200 acres, half of them in forest reserves or village forestry