ENG-1949 — Page 72

polluting the water. On these terraced areas the question of erosion and seepage

seepage water is less important than the question of finding a productive use for good agricultural land, on which it has become necessary to prohibit cultivation. Melaleuca has been the species exclusively used for this purpose thriving as it does under damp or waterlogged conditions. Extensive afforestation of the hillsides in this area is also in progress.

Restoration of a forest covering can only be achieved if the strictest possible protection is given to the vegetation both from wood-cutters and from fire. Any planting that is done must be supplementary to protection, since either wood-cutters or fire can rapidly annihilate a whole season's planting. Protection against wood-cutters has always been a difficult problem in Hong Kong in view of the close proximity of such a large population to the forest areas. Since the war the position has worsened by the spread of the population into former forest areas, and in an endeavour to stop this spread many arrests were made during the course of the year by the Forestry Department of would-be squatters found in the process of erecting huts in the plantations.

To combat the fire menace a lookout post has been established on Kowloon Peak which can report outbreaks over very large areas of Hong Kong and the Mainland by telephone before they can spread and cause extensive damage. Notices are also erected during the dry season warning the public of the danger of fires to the plantations.

Approximately 200,000 trees were planted in 1949 most of which were raised in tin tubes under a method which was introduced into the Colony in 1947 from New South Wales. This system is particularly suitable for raising tree seedlings for planting under conditions where failures are likely to occur from drying out after the young trees have been lifted from a seed bed. By the end of 1949 the stock of seedlings in the nurseries was over 300,000 and a programme to increase the annual production to well over the half million mark by 1951 is in hand. Seedlings were raised practically entirely from stocks of seed collected locally.

An interesting development from the Forestry point of view is to be found in the Sai Kung district of the New Territories. Here the forestry lot holders in all the villages have voluntarily agreed to hand over the management of their forestry, lots to the Forestry Department. The primary objects of this arrangement are to improve forestry practice by ensuring that the plantations are properly stocked and to prevent the cutting of the trees before maturity for the sake of an early monetary return. Each village uses its own labour to plant up its forestry lot under direction of the Forestry Department, and receives wages for planting and tending at

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