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when the Garden Committee finally dissolved and its members left the Colony, I moved the Government to revert to the old original plan of putting the whole of the planting operations under the
general supervision of the Public Works Department with the Superintendent to attend to the technical or professional details.
of the treatment and propagation of plants.
16.
My object in this step was not to gratify any personal ambition as alleged by the Fords, for I had no ambition other than to have more tree-planting done. My object was solely to give all future forest-making the benefit of the resources of a large and important organization like the Public Works Department with all its appliances, resources, and numerous personnel, and with its many facilities for conducting operations on larger scales. By the machinery of the Public Works Department I aspired to infuse life into the work, to spread it, to enlarge its direction with a more vigorous hand than had ever yet been brought to the task by Mr. Ford and the foresters, and I am still of opinion that this plan would have been the best, for it would have brought the general scheme of laying out the Island, its roads, works, and plantations under one organization, while Mr. Ford's professional knowledge would have been none the less utilized in technical details.
10
Having