Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/144

 of banyans illustrates this point. Large branches of 6 to 11 inches in diameter are sawn off convenient trees, the leafy twigs pruned off, the whole swathed in straw-rope and placed upright in a hole in the road metal along the sides of the road to be planted. In a few weeks leaves begin to appear, and within a year the new avenue is in full foliage. The vitality of the Banyan is its chief glory, but it is also the cause of its recent exclusion from street planting. Its roots are too pushing: they find their way into drain pipes through the smallest faults, and cause obstructions thereby that have incurred much expense to the sanitary authorities. In the extensive street-planting now proceeding in Kowloon, therefore, the Banyan is vetoed, and Candlenut, Heteropanax, and Poinciana take its place. The Public Gardens consist of some 16 acres of sloping ground between Albany Nullah and Glenealy Ravine, and are cut into two nearly equal parts by the Albany Road. The spur of the mountains on which they lie is occupied above by European residences, and below by Government House and the Government Offices. Horticulture in Hongkong has one great advantage over that in most other places, and one great disadvantage—the former is secured by the peculiar climate, which allows of the cultivation, almost to perfection, of some of the finest flowering shrubs in the world; while the latter is the regular occurrence of typhoons, which always damage the gardens more or less every season. On the whole, however, this may be said to be an easy place in which to produce a good garden. There are camellias, allamandas, azaleas, hydrangeas, poincettias, &amp;c., which luxuriate in a way seldom seen elsewhere, and which produce a mass of colour in the gardens in their proper season; then there are the peculiar indigenous shrubs and trees, some of which have never been raised in other gardens—among them is the lovely rhodolcia, which is indigenous in the island and in Yunnan only, and has, so far as I know, resisted all attempts to cultivate it elsewhere. Tree-ferns, too, grow in the more sheltered parts of the gardens with great ease and luxuriance. They form, together with the palms in the Glenealy Ravine, one of the most charming pieces of scenery to be found anywhere. Long before coming to Hongkong I remember hearing of the gardens as some of the most beautiful in the world, although small, and probably there are many visitors who would endorse that opinion. The almost precipitous mountains which rise to the south enhance the luxuriant effect of the vegetation.

The Botanic Gardens are not the only ones maintained by the Government. A small garden was made in 1904 on the waste ground left vacant by the resumption of an insanitary and crowded portion of the Chinese quarter of Victoria under Sir Henry Blake, and called Blake Garden. This, with the gardening in the Colonial Cemetery, West End Park, Government House Garden, and in the grounds at Mountain Lodge, require the maintenance of a considerable staff outside the central gardens.

Just as in early days the curious cultivated plants of Chinese gardens, long known from the descriptions of travellers, were introduced into English gardens from the collections of this department, so also, it has played an important part in investigating and making known to the botanical world the rich and interesting flora of the Chinese Empire.

Numerous expeditions have from time to time been organised for the botanical exploration of neighbouring parts of the continent, and the large number of plants thus discovered and published in botanical journals during the last quarter of a century bear witness to the value of these researches to the botanical world. The Colonial Herbarium, which is arranged in a room adjoining the offices of the department is, no doubt, as it ought to be, the most extensive collection of specimens of Chinese plants in existence. A good library of works necessary to the study of general systematic botany, as well as special ones dealing with the Chinese flora, gives ample facilities to any visitors who wish to work in this branch of study.

The economic side of the work over and above that dealing with forestry, has been shown in the introduction of improved varieties of crops into the agriculture of the new territories; but those who know the Chinese best will not be surprised to be told that they have not profited much from European enterprise in this respect. The export of economic products has probably been more valuable than the imports. Large collections of samples of Chinese vegetable economic products have been made from time to time, and sent to the Imperial Institute,