PRIMARY PRODUCTION
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Territories. All dairy animals are regularly tested and must pass the single intradermal (comparative) test for tuberculosis. During 1964 the milk production was about 11.5 million pounds of milk, valued at $0.65 a pound.
The Colony continued to be free from rabies and rinderpest. The incidence of foot and mouth disease was not serious, though there were some 265 outbreaks of a mild type in both cattle and pigs. About 3,500 cattle and pigs were inoculated against foot and mouth disease types 'O' and 'A', 31,000 pigs against swine fever and some 6,000 cattle against rinderpest, with locally produced vaccine. In all 12,464,000 doses of Ranikhet vaccine and 2,410,800 doses of intranasal-drop vaccine were used for the prevention of Newcastle disease in poultry.
FORESTRY
The Agriculture and Fisheries Department is responsible for forestry generally, and for the direct afforestation of water catch- ment areas, protection of vegetation on Crown lands, assistance to village forestry and amenity planting in catchment areas. Hill-sides are predominantly grass covered, with a thicker cover of shrubs in some places and patches of scrub forest in remoter and less acces- sible areas. Thickly-wooded areas also occur where the vegetation has been protected against cutting and fire, as on Hong Kong Island and around villages. Villagers cut grass for fuel and this practice, combined with the prevalent hill fires of the dry season, has brought about the more or less complete destruction of vegeta- tion, followed by soil erosion, in many parts of the Colony. Villagers often have forestry lots on the lower hill slopes, but the trees, mostly pine, are generally so scattered and lopped that they rarely alter the barren aspect of the land.
Government afforestation areas are mostly co-extensive with the water catchment areas, the main ones being the mountainous area from Tai Po in the east to Castle Peak in the west, the catchments of the Kowloon reservoirs, the Shek Pik reservoir catchments and almost the whole of the Shap Long peninsula on Lantau Island, a total of 29,000 acres. So far almost 12,140 acres have been planted. The main species is pine (Pinus massoniana), followed by Brisbane box (Tristania conferta). Experimental plots have been laid out with other species, some of which are now being planted more