50 transactions of royal scottish arboricultural society. 



4. On Forestry in the German Colonies. 



Forestry in Kamerun, Togo and South-West Africa is, as yet, 

 in a purely experimental stage. Some actual progress had been 

 made in the last-named colony, where large areas exist, with 

 favourable conditions as regards soil and water, but all was 

 destroyed during the recent rebellion and a new start had to be 

 made. 



In German East Africa, thirty forest reserves aggregating 

 220,000 acres have been secured, and settlements have been 

 completed in regard to additional areas of 170,000 acres. 

 Satisfactory progress has been made with road-making and 

 cultural operations. The Indian Government has assisted with 

 a liberal supply of seeds of various kinds, chiefly teak and 

 bamboo. 



The forest report from Kiautshao is very interesting in a 

 small way, for, like everything else in that flourishing colony, it 

 is alive and progressive. The growth of arborescent vegetation, 

 including acacia, Scots pine, the Japanese larch and other 

 conifers, is quite abnormal; only the oak lags behind. The 

 market for all forest produce is very extensive, and the prices 

 realisable, even for the smallest twigs, are extremely high. The 

 afforestations, in the area acquired by the Government, extend 

 as yet to only 200 acres, of which about 80 are occupied by 

 acacia and the rest by mixed forest. Forest fires, almost in- 

 variably traceable to carelessness at funerals or other Chinese 

 festivities, were in the beginning a great source of danger, but 

 are now much less frequent, and have been entirely kept out of 

 the newly aff^orested area by means of a broad safety-belt of 

 acacia. The chief danger consists in invasions by Gastropacha 

 Pint. On one occasion seventeen millions of caterpillars were 

 collected in June and July, but until the projected transformation 

 into broad-leaved forests of the old, comparatively valueless, 

 malformed pine forests, of Chinese origin, which touch the 

 present afforestations on two sides, has been completed, 

 this danger from caterpillars will not cease to exist. Hares 

 were another great nuisance, and for a time defied the most 

 approved of patent mixtures, but they finally gave way before a 

 very thin mixture of lime and carbol. Chinese thieves had also 

 been very troublesome for a time, but have gradually found out 

 that theft from a Government forest is not a profitable business. 



