34. The Reserves at Bukit Timah and Kranji were maintained in good 
order throughout the year except for a fire during the very dry weather of 
March at the Bukit Timah Nature Reserves which destroyed about 5 acres 
of secondary regeneration. The burnt area has since been planted over with 
132 trees to establish an arboretum and it is intended to extend this planting 
in the contiguous secondary forest area. The Pandan Reserve was maintained 
till 7th November when the land was taken over by the Jurong Town 
Corporation for development. Aerial photographs were taken of the reserves 
for record, development and research purposes. 
35. Twenty-three permits were issued to various individuals and institu- 
tions for carrying out observations and for collecting specimens within the 
Reserves. The Military continued to use the Water Catchment Area for 
training. 
XIV. METEOROLOGICAL RECORDS 
36. The year was marked by an unusually dry spell lasting 6 weeks 
during February and March. This was reflected in low day time relative 
humidity though night time humidity continued to be as usual near 100 
per cent, and in the unusual amount of direct sunshine, the normal figure 
of 5-6 hours rising to over 8 hours daily. This ‘drought’ resulted in an 
extremely prolific flowering of seasonally receptive trees and in an abundant 
fruiting season of all forest trees over the Singapore Nature Reserves and 
into southern Johore. This also provided additional tree seedling material 
for the tree planting campaign. The dry weather broke in March, the second 
half of which was extremely wet and resulted in the highest monthly rainfall 
for the year being recorded. As usual Bukit Timah attracted a great deal 
more rain than was recorded in the Botanic Gardens, 145 inches as against 
97 inches at the Gardens office. Details of meteorological recordings are given 
in Appendices II to V. 
XV. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE, TRAINING AND EDUCATIONAL SCHEMES 
37. Departmental facilities were available for training in botany and 
horticulture under the following heads: 
(1) Colombo Plan Technical Co-operation Scheme 
{a) One Senior Fellowship in Taxonomy. 
(b) One Senior Fellowship in Horticulture. 
(c) Four Junior Fellowships in Herbarium Practice. 
(d) Six Junior Fellowships in Horticulture and Elementary 
Gardening. 
It is disappointing to record that none of these was taken up during the 
year. 
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