180 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 



Allowing only a value of 3d. per tree on all the trees planted during 

 the last fifteen years, all the mahoganies and plantations are worth 

 £240,000. 



In two circles and parts of a third a great deal of work of an 

 Afforestation nature was undertaken years before any actual forest plan- 

 tation could be made. These are the communal rubber plantations of the 

 Ireh Rubber {Funtumia elastica). In the Central Circle, near over 700 

 villages and towns, plantations varjung from a hundred plants to ones 

 covering several acres and containing many thousands, were made, aggre- 

 gating in all the setting out of over a million trees in a period of about 

 five years. In the Eastern Circle, in over a hundred villages, and in the 

 Ondo and Western Circles over two hundred village plantations were 

 made. Subsequently Para Rubber {Hevea Braziliensis) was added and 

 substituted for the Funtumia wherever the climate was suitable for 

 it. Now the communities concerned have a very valuable asset, which 

 they can tap from year to year and augment at their leisure. What- 

 ever happens to the forest or the immediate neighbourhood of the 

 village, there will at any rate remain the rubber plantation, giving 

 grateful shade to the roadsides and the ground near the villages. In 

 one case a village planted over 1,200 Para rubber-trees, which even as 

 a commercial asset are by no means to be despised. 



In addition to these efforts on the part of the natives, acting under 

 the advice and guidance of the Forest Department, there are the 

 numerous rubber plantations in all the Forest Reserves. In the 

 earlier days these were planted with Funtumia, where, for instance, 

 in the Mamu Forest Reserve nearly one square mile of land is 

 planted with this tree. 



Then, again, there are the district plantations, more especially in 

 the Eastern Circle, where in many cases Para Rubber was planted 

 instead of Funtumia. These areas are for the most part smaller than 

 those of the Forest Reserve or Communal Plantations They served 

 more as demonstration areas to show how rubber would grow in that 

 locality. 



Furthermore, near almost each native court in the Eastern Circle 

 rubber plantations, in many cases of Para and in others of Funtumia, 

 were made. 



The general cost of the Communal District and Native Court 

 Plantation was practically limited to the amount involved in payment 

 of the native Forest staff. These men, however, had other duties 

 to perform, and on the average certainly not more than one-third of 

 their time was occupied in the making of these plantations. For 

 the making of the other plantations of the Forest Reserve about 

 £2,500, or sometimes £3,000, has been spent annually in making them 

 and in the cost of their upkeep once they have been made. Owing 

 to the long dry season in Nigeria the number of plants failing to survive 



