492 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A PORTION OF THE VIRGIN FOREST OF ARISAN. FORMOSA. 



poses of planting and reafforestation. 

 There is now camphor forest of about 

 9,000 acres planted by Government and 

 15,000 acres by the people and beside 

 this we have planted 10,000 acres in the 

 reserve forest. 



As the forest of the island is quite 

 peculiar to that of the mother country 

 both in species of trees and character, 

 in order to investigate these factors we 

 established here the Experimental Sta- 

 tion of Forestry in 1911. The principal 

 work which is now being done is the 

 examination of the physical properties 

 of Formosan trees and experiments on 

 raising seedlings both of Formosan 



trees and of foreign economic plants 

 are also being made. 



There are quite a number of species 

 of economic tropical plants, which it 

 seems possible to successfully acclima- 

 tize, such as fibre, spice, oil, rubber, etc. 

 The Chinese are very ignorant of all 

 idea regarding tree planting. \''ery few 

 trees are seen in their villages and 

 towns, either shade-bearing or garden 

 trees. We, therefore, raise many 

 seedlings here and distribute them 

 sometimes for sale, sometimes free of 

 charge, and sometimes w^e raise 

 seedlings of these for afforestation. 



