ADMINISTRATION 
I. STAFF 
There was no change in establishment during the year. The Director went on 
overseas leave from 5th August to the end of the year, during which time Dr. 
Chew Wee Lek, Botanist, was Acting Director. The post of financial clerk re- 
mained vacant from the beginning of the year to 15th May, when it was filled. 
II. TRAINING 
2. Miss Chang Kiaw Lan, Botanist, who was awarded a scholarship 
under the United Kingdom Government Commonwealth Scholarship and 
Fellowship Scheme left in October for Cambridge University, to study 
taxonomic mycology. 
3. Training facilities were offered by the Singapore Government under 
the Colombo Plan for three students sponsored by the Department of 
Agriculture, Sarawak, to undergo training at the Botanic Gardens. Each 
trainee was put through a 6-month training course in elementary horticulture. 
4. Under a scheme of training for disabled persons, three youths were 
sent by the Labour Department and one from the Singapore Anti- 
Tuberculosis Association for elementary training at the Botanic Gardens to 
fit them for work as gardeners. In addition 40 employees of the People’s 
Association were given instruction in simple gardening. 
III. LABOUR 
5. During the year under review an average of 72 labourers were 
employed in the Botanic Gardens, 56 in the Istana Negara Domain, nine men 
in the Nature Reserves and one man and three women in the herbarium. 
IV. BUILDINGS AND ROADS 
6. Generally, the roads and buildings in the gardens remained in good 
condition. The herbarium building showed new and widening cracking of the 
walls. One of the main buttresses was opened up and the steel H-girder was 
found to be corroded through. Urgent action is necessary to safeguard the 
uniquely valuable collections housed in this building. 
7. Crumbling banks of the lake by the Main Gate Road have been 
strengthened with hakau ( Rhizopora sp.) poles. This was done by the P.W.D. 
Gardens resources were utilised to make brick pillars for the plant house on 
Lawn L. A fence was also erected around the nursery on Lawn Y. The 
construction of a new orchid species house in the Orchid Nursery was begun. 
V. SECURITY 
8. On 30th January the Police received information of a safe-breaking 
raid planned on the Gardens office. Needless to say this office seldom has any 
money to store, and on this occasion the safe was empty. An ambush laid by 
the police resulted in a gun battle (no casualty), the arrest of one person in 
deticto flagrante, the finding of two daggers and two revolvers, and the arrest 
