TROPICAL RECONNAISSANCE WITH SPECIAL REFER- 

 ENCE TO WORK IN THE PHILIPPINES AND 

 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 



By D. W. Matthews 

 Conservator of Forests, British North Borneo 



Before any useful reconnaissance of any forest tract can be accom- 

 plished it is, of course, necessary that the forester undertaking it be 

 acquainted with at least the principal species of commercial importance. 

 In temperate regions, where the important species are few in number 

 and where most of these are fairly well known, no extensive prelim- 

 inary work is necessary before the reconnaissance proper can be 

 taken in hand. Tropical forests, on the other hand, present the diffi- 

 culty of great complexity of species combined with little or no silvical 

 data regarding any but the most important species, and practical recon- 

 naissance work has necessarily had to wait upon a vast amount of 

 preliminary work leading to the identification and description of 

 genera and species. But even these difficulties cannot account for 

 the astonishingly small amount of accurate data which has been col- 

 lected as to the volume stand of timber per acre in the tropics. The 

 study and management of tropical forests is not a new thing. Definitely 

 planned work has been going on, especially in India, ever since the mid- 

 dle of the last century, and vast amounts of data leading to the 

 identification of genera and species and the habits of growth of the 

 more important species have been collected, but the collection of any 

 considerable amount of data as to volume stand per acre has lagged 

 far behind this other work. 



The reasons for this seem to be chiefly the following: 



(i) The older tropical forest services have interested themselves 

 chiefly with species of high commercial value and have especially 

 studied only relatively small areas where these species form a fair 

 percentage of the total stand ; and 



(2) Modern methods of logging, which call for heavy initial in- 

 vestment and complete utilization, are only just being established in 

 the tropics. 



The forest services of British India and the Netherlands East Indies 

 have prepared working plans for special areas and as a basis for these 

 plans have made detailed tree enumerations of the principal species 



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