Abstract
THE chief note of the annual report of the Forest Trust of British Honduras for the biennial period ending March 31, 1933 (Govt. Printer; 1934) is one of marking time. The Department has now had ten years experience, but the increasing depression in the trade of the Colony necessitated economy during the period under review and the personnel was reduced to a skeleton service. The Forest Trust had early decided that further sylvicultural work, with its long lock-up of capital, was to be discontinued, and all reserves were placed on a ‘care-and-maintenance’ basis, an expression which will convey little to the forester possessing an acquaintance with the tropical forest. The energies of the Department are to be applied, therefore, to the furtherance of research work into the exploitation and marketing of the secondary timbers, with the view of taking prompt advantage of the recovery of world trade, when the present depression lifts. So far as it goes, this may be regarded as satisfactory; but the Department will have a long row to hoe before the position of half a decade or so ago is re-attained. The following extract from the report in connexion with taungya is of importance and should interest West African forest officers: “The practice of seeding-up the annual corn-plantation with mahogany continues to give excellent results. Mahogany seed is dibbled in lines with the maize at 10 by 10 feet intervals, and the area is abandoned after the first crop has been harvested. The mahogany is then sufficiently established to compete with the weed growth, which very quickly closes the canopy. Overtopping of the mahogany by weed-growth is found to be beneficial in preventing shoot-borer (Hypsiphylla grandella) attack. Tending consists of removing vines. It is becoming very apparent that huamil (secondary growth) conditions are very favourable to the growth of mahogany, which grows well whilst its head is just under huamil canopy, and that heavy cleaning is not only undesirable but often disadvantageous in rendering the mahogany susceptible to the shoot-borer attack.”
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Forestry in British Honduras. Nature 135, 27 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135027a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135027a0
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