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agriculture. As fis, cities began to. spring up it was natu ay 
moreover, that, along the river valleys and other places whence 
timber and fuel contd be cheaply transported to them, a regular 
system of exploiting this produce should become prevalent, At 
the present time, in districts like the one near Hong Kong, with 
which the writer is well acquainted, the process of exploitation has 
been succeeded by one of absolute denudation. The cutting of the 
trees for timber has been followed by long-continued clearing of 
the secondary undergrowth, and as scrub, however 5 will 
not survive many centuries of constant cropping, many of the 
mountain sides have become quite bare of all kinds of seectaon 
except an irregular growth of coarse grass. 
It is in this sort of country, where cultivated ground is scarce, 
and steep mountain ranges abundant, where the streams are drying 
up year by year, as their valleys lose their verdure, and where the 
dialetee=ens representing the older mand less-civilised es, 
which had become dominated by a more highly cultured invading 
race, and had poet driven ved them into the mountains and other 
unfavourable tracts of country. It is among the older and wilder 
portion that the remains of woodcraft is found, and it is naturally 
among them that interest in re-afforestation becomes first a arent. 
In Kwantung Province, while the more civilised agricultural popu- 
lation, sometimes called Punti, confine their attention to the rich 
alluvial tracts along the sea-shore and in the larger et the 
d hill men or Hakka people get what living they can by 
cultivating the small mountain valleys and the more fertile slopes 
aro m. It is these latter who have made the most general 
practice of formin slattationsy mostly of pine trees, on the hills 
round their villages; but they have not developed a sound principle 
of forestry, and therefore obtain only a scanty return for the 
labour expended upon it. It is indeed quite a rare thing to see 
any trees planted by the Chines permitted to attain their proper 
development for market purpos 
It is interesting to see the offect of the introduction of western 
scientific methods of forestry among a i rect which has already 
arrived at the stage above indicated. The nese are extremely 
loth to adopt any method which is ienitily different to that 
employed by their ancestors before them, and it is only ver 
gradually that any attempted improvement of their operations finds 
favour among them. It is in fact only when direct and obvious 
advantages are observed by them to follow a new plan that they 
take any interest in it at all, The inhabitants of the district, some 
six hundr uare miles in extent, which has come under the 
control of the British government of ‘Hong Kong, have for the last 
thirty years had an opportunity of wen the effect of re-afforestation 
on sound modern principles. A large number of them have actually 
been employed by the ritish fotiets department, and others are 
having the advantages of al brought before their notice in the 
