amage to Crops.
295
15 years and that it will take 10 to 15 years before the Public Gardens will look the same as they did before the storm. The structural and other repairs in those gardens and in the other places under the control of the Department will cost about $1,200 but of course the major part of the injuries are irreparable except by time.
35.
The most considerable damage to crops appears to have been in the low-lying ground at the head of Tolo Harbour near Tai Po and on the shores of Starling Inlet near Sha Tau Kok. In the former place the water submerged the rice fields to such an extent that 5 persons were drowned in them between Tai Po New and Old Market Towns. At Sha Tau Kok embankments and sea-walls were destroyed and the salt water thus let in over the fields. Repairs to these sea defences were at once put in hand by the villagers in the hopes of minimizing the effects of the disaster but these repairs were nullified by the subsequent typhoon of the 29th September.
The autumn crop of rice was just beginning to be in ear and there is no hope of that which has been submerged by the sea ripening. I still trust that the expectations of a good autumnal harvest which seemed to ...