PRIMARY PRODUCTION
97
estimated at $2,050,000. The most popular types of table birds are the White or Blue King crossed with the Homer.
Local brown cattle and buffaloes are kept for work purposes and surplus stock is sold for slaughter. The Chinese brown cattle are particularly well suited to the local environment and manage- ment. Some 5,600 surplus local cattle were marketed for slaughter at an estimated value of $2,800,000. The dairy cattle in Hong Kong are mainly Friesians and are kept in isolation on one large farm on Hong Kong Island and in smaller farm groups on the outskirts of Kowloon. All dairy animals are regularly tested and must pass the single intradermal (comparative) test for tuberculosis. During 1961 there was a slight decrease in milk production, due to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, but yields were not greatly affected and the estimated total production was 12,400,000 pounds of milk, valued at $1 a pound.
The Colony continued to be free from rabies and rinderpest, and the incidence of foot and mouth disease, both in local and imported stock, was not serious, there being some 250 outbreaks of a mild type, in both cattle and pigs. Slightly less than 63,200 pigs were inoculated against swine fever, and some 8,200 cattle against rinderpest, with locally produced vaccine. 12,500,000 doses of Ranikhet vaccine and 2,350,000 doses of Intranasal-Drop vaccine were used for the prevention of Newcastle disease in poultry. Farmers are making more use of the livestock advisory services of the Agriculture and Forestry Department.
FORESTRY
The Agriculture and Forestry Department is responsible for the direct afforestation of water catchment areas, for the protection of vegetation on Crown lands, for assistance to village forestry, and for amenity planting in catchment areas. A thick cover of vegeta- tion is essential to prevent silting of reservoirs and erosion, and to help streams to flow more regularly by inducing as much water as possible to remain in the soil. Well-managed forests are an ideal way to achieve this. Elsewhere forestry can provide timber and fuel for local consumption and help improve rural economy. In fact, forestry is probably one of the most suitable forms of exten- sive land development possible in the parts of the New Territories which comprise steep hills, woodlands or scrub.