[ { "id": 208564, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 21, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "With production of the 1977 Journal our printer and member of the Society, Mr. Lam Yung-fai of Ye Olde Printerie, has completed seventeen years of sterling work for the Society. He has always treated our publications as special jobs and in recognition of his patience, and appreciation of his affection for the Society, we propose to make him an Honorary member of the Society and welcome him tonight at the dinner.\n\nLibrary\n\nAs a result of removal of the library to the Arts Centre, there has been a spectacular increase in its use. This makes our expenditure in time, effort and money pay off, largely due to Mr. Rydings' enthusiasm. The Collection has also grown at a higher rate than in previous years. I would like to underline here Mr. Rydings' thanks to all who have contributed books and back issues of periodicals to our collection this year. We are grateful to Lady Ride for giving us some items from Sir Lindsay Ride's library collection which will serve as a remembrance to us of his services to the Society. In February we had a visit from Mr. Dennis Duncanson who was first Hon. Secretary of your Society after it was resuscitated, and is now administrative Director of the Parent Branch. He attended Dr. Thrower's lecture and handed over a book donated by the Parent Society which has also joined our library collection. It was very pleasant to see Mr. Duncanson again after so many years.\n\nMembership\n\nThe total membership of the Society increased very slightly from 517 at the end of February 1978 to 528 at the end of this February. Owing to deaths, and resignations, mostly through members leaving Hong Kong or presumed to have left Hong Kong since we received no reply to notices about membership dues, we have had the usual drop in membership, with an increase to counter this loss as a result of new recruits. It is appropriate here to express our regret at the death of Mr. Henri Veitch, so long a faithful attender of our lectures. We all miss his questions and comments and are pleased that we were able to have the opportunity of hearing a talk from him in December 1977 about his long residence in China and some of the now well-known historical figures he was acquainted with at that time.\n\nxi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210728, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "62\n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU\n\nThe site referred to is the area of rising ground to the south of the site occupied by the present Government House and on a site formerly occupied by the Record Office on \"Government Hill\" which had served as a temporary Government House from 1841 to 1842.\n\nOn Oct 7th in 1861 Mr. Th. Donaldson was appointed Curator of the Public Gardens and the gardens were thrown open to the public under certain regulations on August 6th 1864. In October of that year the military band began giving promenade concerts in the gardens at stated intervals. The establishment of the public gardens had obviously done much to instill among the European community a sense of both pride and achievement and this sense of well-being was reflected in the wide-scale level of planting in the colony and confirmed by Eitel (1895) who stated that:\n\n\"The increased attention, given to the cultivation of trees along the public roads and around European dwellings on the hill side, had already done very much to displace the pristine barrenness of the site on which the city was built by patches of shrubbery.\"\n\nIn the copious correspondence between Hongkong and London, the gardens were referred to either as a Botanical Garden (as when the Surveyor General ordered seeds for it from a Mr. Veitch of Chelsea in 1861) or as a Public Garden and was under the auspices of the Surveyor General and a Garden Committee.\n\nIn 1871 Charles Ford was appointed as the first Superintendent of Gardens and in his first letter back to Dr. Hooker of Kew after his arrival, he reported:\n\n\"The Public Gardens are in a very fair order and well stocked with plants as regards quantity, but we require greater variety.\n\n\"Very few of the plants are labelled and I believe, no catalogue of them has been drawn up. We have not any Orchids nor Ferns except those indigenous to the Island. The plants which have been introduced are chief-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214095, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 163, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "5.00\n\nRC DIAPHRAGM\n\nINSPECTION SPACE\n\nWEDGE\n\nDetection testing pipe\n\nROCK FILL\n\nTHAT\n\nGALLERY\n\nBLOCK\n\nPITCHING 1½ THICK\n\n50\n\n100\n\n150 FEET\n\nCross section of Gorge dam\n\nGorge Dam Cross-section, Shing Mun Reservoir, 1936 Binnie Consultants Ltd/Binnie Black & Veatch\n\nSTONE TOE\n\n38000\n\n131", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215635, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 412, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "363\n\nand still important C. saluensis can be seen, against a building which has since rather ignobly become the ladies' loo).\n\nCaerhays also had, for me, the most unusual side-light on the business of importing oriental plants: in the Castle itself there is a collection of Chinese blue and white porcelain, bought at the behest of Veitch's Nurseries (for whom Ernest Wilson collected plants in China between 1899 and 1905) in order to show its clients the plants painted in their Chinese settings!\n\nWe were guided around Caerhays by the Head Gardener, Jamie Parsons, whose tour was a hugely impressive mix of information about rare plants, and the science and practicality of running a large and important garden. His tour provided the most comprehensive range of oriental trees and shrubs of all the gardens we visited, thanks to the quality of the Caerhays collection, and to the amount of time he gave us despite the demands of his work.\n\nAmongst other things, he is engaged in working on the historic records of the gardens, much helped by a garden diary stretching back over some 100 years, and in identifying the many hybrids found in the garden. He sends away slips of material from rare specimens to a specialist centre in Switzerland for grafting, in order to ensure their survival. He battles with lichen, which will swamp and kill azaleas, rabbits which can ringbark (and kill) a magnolia overnight; with replanting the 150 acres of woodland largely felled by storms and hurricanes in recent years, and with the third biggest pest in gardens' (after rabbits and deer); human beings stealing plant labels.\n\nWe also learned, sadly, that these gardens are finding it increasingly difficult to find people to come and work in them: a recent advertisement by Caerhays produced no candidates at all, despite offering accommodation. When one sees how much (often heavy) work has to be done by ever smaller teams of staff, it is understandable perhaps, but - as we learned - there can be few gardens which are more important to the future of oriental plants, in the West. We wish them well for the future. Perhaps there are RAS members looking for an energetic new career after leaving Hong Kong, helping to maintain this marvellous oriental heritage?\n\n363", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]