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 varying 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 
