ENG-1958 — Page 125

PRIMARY PRODUCTION AND MARKETING

99

was completed during the year. Planting continued in the Pat Heung Forest Reserve, where two-thirds of the area has been com- pleted. In the Fu Shui Forest Reserve, which forms the catchments of two small irrigation reservoirs in Castle Peak district, planting, which was started rather late in 1957, has already been extended over half the total area. The forest reserves mentioned in this paragraph extend unbroken across the mountains of the Colony from Castle Peak in the west to Tai Po in the east and comprise altogether about 13,000 acres.

Planting was also done in the Kowloon Hills Forest Reserve (catchment of the Kowloon reservoirs) and at Shap Long, Lantau Island, where a new forest reserve was formed extending over the whole peninsula. Prisoners from the Chi Ma Wan Prison were employed in this reserve enabling a very big increase in planting to be effected. In fact, about a quarter of the total for the year was planted in the Shap Long Forest Reserve.

The forest reserves are divided into compartments of 200-300 acres, and records and maps are prepared giving details of the areas of various species planted in each compartment. Track is thus kept of each plantation so that replanting and tending_can be prescribed annually: for, in addition to the new planting, there is a great deal of such work to be done in the established planta- tions. The main species planted is pine (Pinus Massoniana), but experimental plots of a wide variety of other species have been made and some of these are now being planted more extensively. Among the most promising, are species of Casuarina and Eucalyptus.

!

In order to provide tree seedlings for afforestation the Forestry Division maintains a series of tree nurseries in the New Territories -a main nursery of twenty three acres at Tai Lung, smaller per- manent nurseries in each forest district and temporary nurseries in many of the areas currently being planted. Altogether there are some twenty nurseries with a total area of approximately forty acres. These nurseries are capable of producing two to three million tree seedlings annually. Most of the seedlings are grown in nursery beds and lifted for planting with bare roots; care being taken to see that the roots are not injured or allowed to dry out before planting, which must be done without delay. This manner of planting is likely to give very variable results, depending on the