8 
m 
Waste Lands. 
tlie systematic name is not given, I lnive not met with a tree 
in blossom, and where the local name is omitted, it is owing 
to none of my guides being able to furnish me with the 
name. See Appendix A. 
32. Such Crown forests as remain uncut are widely distri- 
buted in isolated patches over the island. These forest patches 
or clumps are of various sizes, from half an acre or so to about 
twenty-five acres, and of no particular shape ; their distance 
from each other may average a quarter of a mile, though often 
exceeding a mile. The interspace is generally waste grass 
land which supports, as a rule, only strong-growing grass 
locally known as « lalang” (Imperata Kcenigii), which 0 chokes 
any seedlings of forest trees which might otherwise spriim, 
and ultimately reforest such lands. The area of forest of 
this description is difficult to estimate, but I think that 5,000 
acres would be about the proper figure to bo termed approxi- 
mate. Little timber of any particular value remains in the 
Government forest ; some patches contain a few trees of fair 
size, but they produce wood of indifferent quality. Frequently, 
however, a tree of serayah or meranti may be met with in 
the Jarger forest clumps, where they have been spared owing 
to their occupying inaccessible positions, or to accident. 
33. Around such trees may be found seedlings of the same 
kinds in limited numbers, and also at some little distance to 
which the winds have wafted the seed, but these constitute 
only a small proportion of the seedlings to be found in these 
forests; the majority being inferior species, and as these are 
preparing to form the forests of the future, it need hardly be 
said that they will not be very valuable when grown, ‘unless 
assisted by regeneration cuttings, or, where that is likely to 
prove ineffectual, by artificial sowing or planting to the 
requisite extent. * 
34. This condition of things is not, I believe, generally 
understood in the Colony, where the opinion prevails that the 
waste lands only require attention ; but much of the secondary 
growth which forms the greater proportion of the present 
forest of the island is, from a Forester’s point of view, nearly 
as worthless as the waste lauds themselves. 
35. It is indeed difficult to properly account for the 
degenerate state in which the ^remaining forests of the island 
are found, and I can only surmise that the valuable trees which 
once covered the surface of the island must have been removed 
before they had made provision for reproduction by seed- 
shedding, and that the condition of the land when denuded 
must have been unfavourable to the growth of their progeny, 
I observed in one forest a band of men eagerly searching for 
young trees of Tampinis which were believed to grow there, 
and a little later I saw several trees cut over close to the 
ground. These were small plants not more than three inches 
m diametei, a fact which would seem, to show that the destruc- 
tion of the saplings in this way by natural selection, has been, 
perhaps, the chief agent in bringing about the present unsatis- 
factory condition of growth. 
36. The trees, some of which are only now made known 
to science as growing in the Straits Settlements, and which 
compose such forest as remains uncut on the island, are given ; 
but some are now so scarce that they may be looked upon as 
extinct for any useful purpose they now serve. There is yet 
another class to describe, viz., auxiliaries. These are the small 
trees and shrubs which form the undergrowth, and which, though 
