612 Forestry Quarterly 



forest work was in the hands of the Director of Agriculture. 

 Up to that time a little work had been done in establishing arboreta 

 and plantations. The natives had been given forest rights and 

 had destroyed a large proportion of the valuable indigenous 

 forests. 



Forest Departments were established in Orange Free State and 

 the Transvaal under the Agricultural Departments of the Crown 

 Colony Governments in 1903. These departments were staffed 

 with trained men selected from the Cape Service and from Europe. 

 An active start was made in setting aside the few thousand acres 

 of indigenous forest in Transvaal and in establishing arboreta and 

 nttrseries preliminary to carrying on an aggressive planting policy. 

 Planting in Orange Free State is extremely difficult. The ele- 

 vated treeless plains suffer severely from drought, frost and dry- 

 ing winds. The most promising districts are restricted to the 

 Basutoland border where moisture conditions are better. 



There is no indigenous forest. 



The forest prospects in the Transvaal are better. There are 

 large areas of land along the east slopes forming the eastern 

 boundary that are fit for forest planting. In the north, too, on 

 the mountain ranges, are also areas where conditions are such that 

 forest planting wiU be successful and profitable. 



The indigenous forests are not extensive; they are found on the 

 south and east slopes of the mountains and on the northern es- 

 carpment at a height of 4,000 to 6,000 feet where the indigenous 

 Yellow-wood forest reaches its northern limit. Across the Lim- 

 popo River from this escarpment begins the low veld with the 

 open, dry, deciduous scrub forest of sub-tropical Rhodesia. 



The Union of the four provinces in 1910, carried out on a 

 broader scale than the Union in Canada or Australia, brought 

 under the scope of one Forest Act and one administration the 

 whole of the indigenous and planted forests of South Africa. 

 Forestry thus became the distinctly national question that its 

 importance merits. 



Present Organization 



The Forest Act, passed in 1913, while consolidating the ordi- 

 nances of the four provinces follows the previous Cape Act. The 

 chief provisions of the Act are for the reservation and protection, 

 unalienably except by vote of the two Houses of Parliament, of 

 all forest reservations ; the acquisition by the Government of land 

 for forest purposes; and the increasing of the timber production 



