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On drier land are grown pea-nuts, taro, ginger, onions, and many other crops. Pineapples are grown in some places, always on the hillsides, and nearly always among pine trees; these help to shade the plants and hold the soil together, otherwise the heavy summer rains would wash it all off and make the hillside a desert. The plants last seven to nine years. On the Islands pineapples are grown only on Tsing Yi, Ma Wan, and Lantau. Other fruit is grown near villages: laichis, oranges, lungngan, pumeloes, and papaya; the last especially in North Lamma.
Fishing is almost entirely in the hands of the Tan Ka and the Hoklos. Big junks go out from Tai O, Cheung Chau, and Hong Kong to trawl on the continental shelf beyond and around the Lemas and Ladrones; smaller boats go in for line fishing and prawn catching; the dried and salted shrimp paste is what gives to Cheung Chau its "ancient and fishlike smell". But the main fishery of the year is that of the "wong fa", which migrate from near Kwongchau Wan every autumn up the coast towards Swatow. Night fishing with acetylene lamps is very common: these first came into favour about 1920. Stakenet fishing is very common, but does not pay very well. Rock oysters, the sort that cut your feet when bathing, are picked in great numbers by women and children, especially at low tides in summer, all round the coast. Crabs and lobsters (the sort without claws) are caught in nets and traps.
Forestry is confined to the growing of firewood for use and sale. The plantations are generally near villages, but some on the islands belong to owners who live elsewhere. Nearly all Tsing Yi is divided between three forestry lots: yet on Lamma there are no forest lots, though there are trees all right. The biggest forestry lot is at Tung Chung. Very little planting is done except when encouraged by the District Officer: trees are allowed to sow themselves. Grass, growing thick in summer, is cut for fuel everywhere in autumn; it is the chief cooking fuel of the New Territories. Its cutting is women's work.
Other island industries are salt-making, confined to Tai O; lime-burning at Pingchau, Tsing Yi, and formerly at Naikwuchau; shell and coral are used. Limekilns on a small scale are found everywhere along the coasts; the place-name "fui yiu", not ...