166 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 
towards them. In each case, however, it is essential to have either 
co-opted or elected representatives of the locality, either by the 
chiefs or by representatives of the people, so that the wishes and needs 
of the locality may be thoroughly considered. 
Lastly, and by no means the least important feature of the Forest 
Reserve, is the esthetic view. In the regions of Permanent Forests, 
healthier localities are afforded for the people, and they are also prettier 
and more pleasant. This applies not only to temperate-zone forests, 
but also to tropical forests. It is a well-known fact also that where 
there are permanent forests the value of the other land in that locality 
is always rated higher, and is worth more for leasing if adequately 
covered with a sufficient proportion of forest. 
IV. AFFORESTATION IN NIGERIA. 
The Forest Department, not being content with obtaining a revenue 
out of the forests from the trees cut down for export or for local use, 
have spent and are spending several thousands of pounds each year 
in planting valuable forest trees. Going back historically before the 
time when the Forest Department had a sub-head in the estimates for 
‘‘ Labour for Plantations’ or ‘“‘ Teak Plantations ” or “‘ Upkeep and 
Improvement of Forest Reserves,’ we had the annual planting of many 
tens of thousands of mahogany-trees by the timber leaseholder. The 
whole of this was chiefly done in the Benin district of the Benin province. 
Although this transplanting of self-sown mahogany-trees into better 
situations near timber camps, or at the side of falling roads and into 
the spaces left by the fallen mahogany-trees, was by no means carried 
out very systematically or under very expert planters, the results are 
all the more creditable to those who so early started to reproduce 
the forests. It is most interesting to see in different parts on the banks 
of the Osse River young thrifty plantations now nearly twenty years 
old and nearly 30 feet high. In a similar way in the forest there are 
to be seen large numbers of somewhat smaller sized mahoganies growing 
singly or in groups, only needing a certain amount of clearing and tend- 
ing to prevent their being overgrown by other forest trees. Scattered 
though they are throughout the forest, it is not too much to say that 
the prospective younger aged forest will be more valuable than that 
which originally stood in its place. 
Easier to find, though in some way less attractive to look at, are 
the regularly made mahogany plantations of the Forest Department. 
In addition to isolated specimen trees which are found in the forest 
Arboretums at Calabar, Degema, Benin City and Olokemeji, several 
thriving plantations are found near Benin City in the Ogba and Obagie 
Reserves, in the Ilaro, Mamu and Olokemeji Reserves. In the last- 
named are the most extensive areas of all, and also, despite 
