ENG-1963 — Page 137

102

PRIMARY PRODUCTION

to construct footpaths in order to open up more marginal land to compensate for the agricultural land lost.

LAND UTILIZATION

The Agriculture and Forestry Department began a land utiliza- tion survey in 1953. The compilation of preliminary data was com- pleted in 1955 and maps were prepared on scales of 16 inches to one mile and 32 inches to one mile. In 1954 Dr T. R. Tregear, senior lecturer in Geography at the University of Hong Kong, made an independent reconnaissance study of land utilization in the Colony. Dr Tregear had full access to the work of the Agricul- ture and Forestry Department and produced a report from this data, Land Use in Hong Kong and the New Territories, published by the University in 1958. This information has been supplemented and brought up to more recent date (1960), in Soils and Agriculture of Hong Kong by Dr C. J. Grant, formerly of the Agriculture and Forestry Department and now at the University of Hong Kong.

The total land area of the Colony and its component parts was recomputed in 1959. Although the areas for the various classes of land had not changed appreciably, some slight modification of the original figures resulted. Using the same classification of land use, the following data was accepted for 1963:

Approximate

Class

area

(square miles)

Percentage of whole

Remarks

(i) Built-up (urban areas)

22.5

5.5

(ii) Steep country

111.0

28.0

Includes roads and railways Rocky, precipitous hillsides incapable of plant estab- lishment

(iii) Woodlands

22.5

5.7

Natural and established woodlands

(iv) Grass & scrub lands

162.0

40.7

Natural grass and scrub

(v) Eroded lands

20.0

5.0

Stripped of cover. Granite

country. Capable of re- generation

(vi) Swamp & mangrove

lands

5.5

1.4

(vii) Fish ponds

2.0

0.5

(viii) Arable

52.5

13.2

Capable of reclamation

Fresh and brackish water fish farming

Includes orchards and mar- ket gardens