DEDICATION
With grateful thanks to:
Miss Julia Lam, Dr. P. S. Selwyn-Clarke,
Mr. T. Lunson, Mr. Andrew Tse
who made this book possible by supplying me with seeds and
drawing materials in Stanley Internment Camp.
Vegetable cultivation in Hong Kong: View pages
...
The war came and one of its consequences was the complete loss of a
thirteen years' collection of notes. drawings and bulletins and of a repre-
sentative library on tropical gardening.
This second edition has largely been written during a sojourn of 43
months in the Civilian Internment Camp at Stanley, during which period
ample time was available for gardening and for preparing pen and ink
illustrations. The lack of books of reference was in part compensated by
the opportunity to make comparisons between and studies of the crops
grown in the diverse gardens in the Camp. After the first year a few
gardening books were sent into Camp by kind friends in Hong Kong.
Fertilizers were practically unobtainable and for the most part the soil
was very poor so reliance had to be placed in compost prepared from grass,
rubbish, wood ashes and urine. The plan adopted was to bury in a trench
mixtures of these materials and to cover them with soil carried in by
bucket and wheelbarrow from the hillside. Seeds were not always easy
to obtain especially during the early months ...
... However, such a life
presented an unique opportunity studying plants and their habits and
compelled the gardener to be self-reliant; there was no fah wong to do
the digging, no coolie to do the carrying of earth or water ...