211
11. The following is a return of the trees planted since 1873, when I assumed office:--
China Firs, ... 55,849
Bombax, ... 2,380
Moreton Bay Chestnuts, ... 1,050
Banyans and India-rubbers, ... 3,039
Casuarinas, ... 1,087
Australian Gums, ... 500
Bamboos, ... 1,200
Miscellaneous, ... 11,400
Total, ... 76,455
Average number planted per annum, ... 15,290
sites elsewhere.
it, and which I think the owner would part with not very unwillingly, as he does not appear ever to have turned them to much account. I assess their value at $762.75, and would advise their being entered by the Crown. I am fain to recommend this course only after a fruitless search for suitable Nursery
21. In addition to the outlay in its acquisition, the cost of draining and preparing the nursery, and purchasing seed and materials, will be $1,299, making a total prime cost of $2,061.75, while the ceeding yearly expenditure in labour and material will not exceed $1,610.00, a figure sufficiently moderate, I trust, to recommend the project to His Excellency the Governor's favourable consideration. 22. If not inconsistent with future Gaol Regulations, it might be possible to reduce the estimate by employing long-sentenced convicts, or those whose term of punishment has already passed from the punitive to the reformatory stage, to fill the nursery, dig holes on the hill side and to carry trees, in which case item 4 and half of 6 in the appended Estimate might be struck out and the prime cost reduced to $1,436.75, while at the same time the yearly outlay might, by means of the same assistance, be brought down to $650 as shown in the Estimate.
12. However imposing this array of figures may look upon paper, the result is by no means telling on the ground itself, and it is somewhat disheartening to think that after all, the entire seventy-six thousand trees have only sufficed to dot here and there a few streets and suburban roads, a ravine or two of Victoria Peak, and to cover but sparsely the small, isolated and insignificant patches often the plantation sites shall have receded to greater distances to consider the advisability of incipient forest to be seen on the mountain slopes overlooking the harbour, and which, from the contrast of their greenness and luxuriance, serve, like oases in the desert, only to remind one the more painfully of the glaring bareness of the surrounding hills.
23. During the first two years, the places to be planted out would be sufficiently close in to town to allow of convict labour, if available, being employed with safety, and I think it will be time enough continuing the work with hired coolies. Independently, however, of the class of labour to be used, it is of great importance that the tree nursery itself should be in some district immediately suburban so as to ensure its efficient supervision by myself and my officers.
13. I have made with deep interest an examination of the waste lands of this Colony capable of
24. With reference to His Excellency the Governor's recommendation that the cocoanut palm being wooded, and which are unfit for any better use. Freely excluding paddy-fields, meadows, and ground cultivable for food or other productive purposes, as also foreshores, tidal swamps and all places too rocky, or otherwise unable to support vegetable life, I find the sites available for trees planted in the future. None better can be selected for the sea shores or other salt low lying places of the Island and Kowloon, and its powers of resistance to typhoons is no small qualification in its favour.
14. Looking to the exposure of most of these sites to the force of the North-East monsoon, and especially to the action of typhoons, it would be necessary to plant the young trees somewhat thick from five to seven cents a piece, and we might begin by purchasing and planting five thousand so as to enable them to shelter one another; not less than four should be planted to every hundred during the forthcoming year.
For ten thousand acres then, we would require open grounds near the Bowrington Canal and in the Bowrington Compound. That neighbourhood The first palm-groves might be appropriately planted in the sandy square feet, or in other words 1,740 trees to the acre. over seventeen million trees, and if our planting operations were continued at their present tortoise speed viz., at the rate of 15,000 trees a year, it would take us eleven hundred years to complete the job.
Health drive which the European Community has boasted of, owing however to the salt and sandy nature of the soil it has defied whatever attempts may have been made to cultivate it, and it remains to this day unattractive and shadeless.
15. But, although feasible, it may perhaps be too much to aspire to ten thousand acres of woodland. I will, therefore, reduce my figures at once to five thousand acres, an area one third of which may be planted during the term of His Excellency's Administration without entailing any very serious outlay or throwing upon the Department over which I have the honour to preside any additional work which it may not grapple with if assisted, in the proper seasons, by hired or convict labour.
25. It is the opinion of competent professional persons, that by a judicious selection of hardy classes of plants to suit the peculiar conditions of different localities in regard to soil, moisture, shelter from prevailing winds, temperature, and altitude above sea level, there will be no difficulty in
16. Before proceeding further, I should explain that one of the reasons why planting has been hitherto conducted upon such a sorry scale in this Colony, is to be found in the smallness of the Government tree nursery at Sokonpò, which will not hold more than fifteen thousand seedlings and which is, therefore, unable to accommodate one year's sowing and the preceding year's trees at the same time. This will be the more readily understood, when it is borne in mind that the process of transplanting, partly dependent on the weather, extends sometimes over two months, and that owing to the young plants being still in their beds often as late as March, there is no ground available in which to sow the seeds that should be already germinating in February. For this reason for instance, no seeds were gathered or sown by Mr. FORD, the gardener, in 1876, and there will therefore, be no trees to plant next spring, a circumstance sufficiently mortifying.
17. A second though subordinate reason is the inadequacy of the present staff. If our operations are increased, it will not however be necessary to add very largely to the number of permanent foresters, journeymen coolies can be taken on and dismissed as occasion may require; the cost of the and six additional Foresters is given in the Estimate appended,
18. I had at one time feared that the difficulty of getting enough seeds might prevent our sowing as many as half a million each season, but the result of enquiries on this point is satisfactory.
Tall ...
26. It is unnecessary to descant upon the benefits which the realization of this project of increased re-planting promises to Hongkong. It is universally acknowledged that the improved health of the Colony is in a great measure due to the little that has already been done in clothing the granite with luxuriant vegetation, and His Excellency will not have failed, in the short time he has been among us to notice how general and fervent is the hope that the Government will not slacken its exertions in the good work.
I have the honour to be,
Your obedient Servant,
J. M. PRICE,
Surveyor General.
The Honourable CECIL. C. SMITH,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
ESTIMATE OF COST OF PLANTING HALF-A-MILLION OF TREES PER ANNUM,
1. Resumption of Farm Lot No. 1, $209.40 2. Resumption of Farm Lot No. 2, 196.20 3. Resumption of Farm Lot No. 3, 306.15 4. Draining and preparing ground, 500.00 5. Fencing waste ground at Bowrington, 150.00 6. Manuring and preparing same, 250.00 7. Purchase of 5,000 Cocoanuts, at 7 cents, 350.00 Total Prime Cost, $2,061.75 8. Contingencies, 100.00 Note.-If convict labour be used, item 4 may be omitted, and item 6 brought down to one-half, reducing the total to $1,436.75