76 COLONIAL REPORTS MISCELLANEOUS. 



From a professional point of view these very open, mixed deci- 

 (luo.i- forests are much to be desired, as they are more amenable 

 1o, and re-pond freely to, systematic management, and contain a 

 greater proportion of useful trees per acre than do the dense, moist 

 evergreen forests near the coast, in which only comparatively few 

 out of the vast number of different species composing the growing 

 stock are of economic importance. 



Tlie Kintampo and N'koranza forests require further investiga- 

 tion with a view to ascertaining the possibility of exploiting them 

 for the home markets. Perhaps the Pru and other large feeders 

 of the Yolta River will prove to be of sufficient size and depth to 

 float down large timber during the flood season. In Burma big 

 io.U-s are frequently exploited from extremely hilly, and even 

 mountainous, country by taking advantage of the heavy rises in 

 the streams during the monsoons. It is wonderful what obstruc- 

 tions, of the nature of rapids and waterfalls, timber is capable of 

 successfully overcoming without sustaining much damage if only 

 the highest floods are utilised in floating it out. 



After leaving N'Koranza we proceeded to Kumasi by the main 

 Kintampo-Kuinasi road, and very soon got into the moist, ever- 

 green tropical forest belt through which the rest of the journey 

 was performed. These forests differ in no respect from those we 

 examined to the west of the capital of Ashanti on our way to 

 Mim, and we therefore did not spend any time in specially investi- 

 gating them. The last two marches were through country that 

 has been extensively cultivated at one time or another, and con- 

 tains some good cola plantations. Nurseries of young cocoa 

 plants were a constant feature of every Ashanti village that we 

 passed through within the big forest region, and the same remark 

 applies to the villages of Upper Waw-saw and Denkira. The way 

 in which the cultivation of this plant has been taken up by the 

 natives throughout the most suitable localities in the Colony and 

 Protectorate is perfectly astonishing, and shows what they are 

 capable of doing, once they have had practical demonstrations of 

 the financial success attending such enterprise. 



We reached Kuniasi on the 3rd May, 1908, and after spending a 

 few days in arranging for our next trip and in visiting Captain 

 Soden,theActingCommissioner at-0boase,with a view to procuring 

 information regarding the possibility of taking up a reserve on the 

 Dampia hills, and in enjoying the kind hospitality of the Acting 

 Chief Commissioner, Major Armitage, D.S.O., with whom I was 

 able to discuss forest matters, Mr. Burbridge and I started on the 

 llth of the same month for our fourth and last trip through the 

 Gold Coast forests. 



Our late journey through the western and northern portions of 

 Ashanti had shown us the immense and valuable resources of the 

 country so far as forestry and agriculture are concerned, and had 

 to me, personally, enlarged my ideas and experience of the forests 

 of tropical West Africa. 



The Forests South-East of Kumasi. 



During a trip made to Kwisa (on the Cape Coast road), south- 

 east of Kumasi, with a view to examining the forests situated 



