ENG-1961 — Page 131

PRIMARY PRODUCTION

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Planting was also carried out in the Kowloon Hills Forest Reserve and in the Shek Pik catchment on Lantau Island. Work on Lantau Island was mainly done by prisoners from Chi Ma Wan.

Assistance to village forestry continued and villagers were in- structed in the correct planting and profitable management of their own forestry plantations. Government demonstration plantations show quite clearly the results that can be achieved and these planta- tions have proved most useful in arousing interest. Trees take a long time to grow and it is not always easy to convince villagers that forestry can be profitable. Interest is spreading steadily, if somewhat slowly, and although it will be some years before the work now being carried out will begin to produce noteworthy results, some of the older stands are now being thinned for the first time and this will be the beginning of steady returns for the

owners.

Educating the young in the value of afforestation is important and this year individual schools again organized their own tree- planting days and invited parents and local dignitaries to participate. Some 66 schools planted more than 6,800 trees, supplied by the Agriculture and Forestry Department, which also provided technical advice and assistance.

The Department maintains a series of nurseries throughout the New Territories to provide seedlings for afforestation. Seedling production is concentrated in the main nursery at Tai Lung and subsequently tubed stock is moved out to the several temporary nurseries adjacent to planting areas. In this way between one and a half and two million seedlings are handled and planted annually. Most seedlings are now raised in polythene tubes, instead of in open nursery beds, and constant effort is made to improve handling and planting techniques.

During the dry season, from October to March, there is constant threat of fire in the plantations and careful precautions have to be taken. Fire lookouts are strategically placed and are connected by field telephone to control points where men, equipment and trans- port stand by during particularly hazardous periods. During the winter of 1960-1 128 fires, affecting over 2,500 acres, were reported and dealt with; half of these were in afforested areas and the