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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 31ST JULY, 1880.
This necessary change will not affect your position in the Government service nor in any way detract from it, the only difference being that on your return you will transact your official business with myself exclusively, in lieu of the Committee, which is now about to cease to exist.
Yours &c.,
(Signed) J. M. PRICE,
Surveyor General.
7. This was the first intimation which I had of the proposed change in management. As it was only a few days before my departure for England, I did not make any observations in reference to it; but during my stay in England I did make representations objecting to my being subordinated to the Surveyor General, as I knew that it would be detrimental to true botanical and arboricultural progress, opinions which were endorsed by Sir JOSEPH HOOKER, who, from his very extensive knowledge and experience in this and kindred subjects, is probably the best authority from whom to seek advice. I need hardly say that, after a most conscientious and devoted application to my duties here, I felt personally very much pained and disappointed at the apparent want of appreciation of my services, especially as the proposed change, so far as I could see, could result in no other good than the gratifying of Mr. PRICE'S ambition.
8. In consequence of His Excellency the Governor's wise policy, I was much gratified and encouraged to find that the Botanical Gardens were, on the 15th of last March, again restored to the charge of the Superintendent in a more complete and useful way than they ever were before, a trust which it has been, and will be my endeavour to discharge to the utmost of my ability while I retain the direction of its business.
9. Since the gardens were constituted a separate department, impediments to progress, such as existed in correspondence and the ordinary business transactions, have been removed, and in consequence of this more time has been available—instead of less, as was anticipated by Mr. PRICE would be the result in consequence of the additional work of a clerical nature which would fall upon me—for botanical investigation and garden management, besides the freedom which my mind has received from the improved systems which have been inaugurated.
II.—FOREST MANAGEMENT.
10. In reference to the above, I will most respectfully beg to have the honour of being permitted to commence by commenting on the Report on Tree Planting which Mr. PRICE addressed to His Excellency the Governor on the 28th August, 1877, because, on this information, and recommendations contained in the report, it would appear that the more extended forest works which were commenced last year were partly based, and, before entering upon fresh operations, it is necessary to remove some false impressions and conclusions which have been arrived at.
11. Mr. PRICE was not responsible for the tree-planting—as will be seen by a reference to rule No. 7 of Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY's instructions in C.S.O. No. 3602 of 1873—from the date of his arrival in Hongkong until February 1877, when I temporarily vacated the charge, and, in consequence, Mr. PRICE was only in possession of such information and statistics as were gathered from my Report on Gardens and Tree Planting, which was forwarded, through Mr. PRICE's office, for the information of the Governor, on the 21st December, 1876, which His Excellency Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY desired Mr. PRICE to acknowledge and thank me for. Therefore, as many of Mr. PRICE's calculations and conclusions must have been mere speculations, in consequence of his not being in possession of statistics on some subjects which it was not necessary should appear in my report, it is not surprising that some of them should have been rather wide of the mark, and probably some of the figures which differ from my returns may have been accidentally changed. Some of the insignificant errors of routine work it is not necessary to refer to.
12. For the more ready comparison of the report, I will place side by side what is necessary to quote from the report, and my opinions on the quotations:
Quotations from Mr. Price's Report Corrections based on Recorded Statistics and Experience Trees planted from 1873 to 1877. China Firs, 55,849 China Pines, 39,049 Bombax, 2,330 Moreton Bay Chestnuts, 1,030 Banyans and India Rubber, 3,039 Ficus Retusa, and F. Wightian, 2,691 Casuarinas, 1,087 Australian Gums, 500 Bamboos, 1,200 Miscellaneous, 11,400 Extract of Table in C. Fonn's Report. Bombax, 2,330 Moreton Bay Chestnuts, 1,050 Ficus Retusa, 2,691 Casuarinas, 1,077 Blue Gums, 600 Bamboos, 1,160 Miscellaneous, 11,175 59,082THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 31ST JULY, 1880.
Paragraph 14. Looking to the exposure of most of these sites it would be necessary to plant the trees somewhat thickly, so as to enable them to shelter one another; not less than four should be planted to every hundred feet square, or, in other words, 1,740 to the acre.
Paragraph 16.
"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 nursery at Soo-konpò, 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 one and the same time. The process of transplanting extends sometimes over two months, and 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 germinating in February."
Paragraph 19.
"To turn out as many as five hundred thousand trees every spring, a nursery containing 14 or 15 acres would be required; also the annual services of sixty coolies for one month to collect seeds, as well as sixty coolies for two months to dig holes, to wrap up and bind the plants with straw, and to convey them to their destinations."
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On account of the great steepness of our mountain slopes, the shelter which very small trees afford each other cannot be said to be anything at all; even if they were only one foot apart, the top of the lower tree would only be at about the base of the upper one; therefore its being impossible for trees of one foot high to shelter each other, the question of shelter may be left out of consideration altogether. 1,210 trees to an acre is quite enough, as I found from careful observation, and with a view to the greatest use which can be made of the thinnings when the trees require such treatment. To plant the five thousand acres proposed, we thus reduce the number of trees needed from about eight and a half millions to six millions.
It was a mistake to suppose that this was one of the reasons why tree-planting had not been conducted on a larger scale. The nursery at Sookonpo will accommodate nearly 50,000 trees at one time, instead of 15,000 as here stated. In the year 1875, we planted from that nursery 19,796 trees, and then not half of the ground was occupied with trees. The reason that no more trees were propagated, was because we had not sufficient money. Although I had represented to Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY the importance of extending tree-planting operations, His Excellency did not appear to be sufficiently interested in the work to adopt the suggestion. The following is a return of the number of trees planted, and the cost of the work for four years. This includes the maintenance of all trees in streets and roads, as well as mountain planting:
Year Number of Trees planted Cost 1873 10,337 $361.41 1874 4,970 356.03 1875 21,899 629.93 1876 10,770 569.52After street and road trees were provided for, we spent the balance of money for hill planting. The trees were usually in the nursery beds much later than the time—March—which Mr. PRICE gives. We usually did not commence to plant Pinus Sinensis before April, and sometimes not before the middle of June, and we planted up to the end of July.
The ground required would be about twenty-two acres. Half of the number of coolies stated for seed collecting should be sufficient, but about ten times the number estimated for digging holes, &c., would be required.
13. Having now dealt with the more important parts of Mr. PRICE's report of his views in reference to tree-planting, before commencing operations I will state the result of the work performed, so far as the limited, but nevertheless the most important, facts are available. I have recently been over most of the ground planted, and from observations made in thirteen different places, which would fairly represent the whole, I found that about seventy-five per cent of the trees planted were dead. On the hills near Wanchai Gap, the deaths amounted to about ninety per cent. Of the twenty-five per cent which were alive, a great number appeared so very sickly that there was little promise of their surviving.