Lychee cultivation in the New Territories, a range of items made from the wood, in the 1920s
HF: It is worth looking at the Hong Kong Naturalist – “a quarterly illustrated journal principally for Hong Kong and South China” which was published from Jan 1930 until Feb 1941. The journal contain articles on a variety of subjects of interest to us including, oysters, Kowloon waterworks, agriculture in the New Territory [sic] and a couple of mountains where mines are mentioned.
…and lychee cultivation. The article linked below appeared in The HK Naturalist Vol 1 No 4 November 1930. It was written by R Baker.
As can be seen below the article mentions a variety of objects the lychee tree wood was put to around the time it was written.
If any reader can provide further information about or images of these or other lychee wood products, especially in Hong Kong, please send them in to the website.
The article begins…The Lychee tree appears to grow well in the New Territories. There are large numbers of old treese in many of the Chinese villages, and a great many young trees, produced by air layering, inarching or grafting, have been planted in new orchards during the last decade.
xxxx
xxxx
Of particular interest to our group is what lychee wood could be turned into, as indicated below: The timber should be allowed to season in a dry situation for at least 3 years, when it may be sawn into planks and scantlings suitable for working up into furniture, ornaments, mallet heads, balls, bowls, etc. The branches are most useful for tool handles of all sorts.
If any reader can find further information about or images of these or other lychee wood products, especially in Hong Kong, please send them in to the website.
See:
Source:
- Lychee cultivation in the New Territories, The Hong Kong Naturalist
This article was first posted on 31st March 2020.
Related Indhhk articles:
- Traditional Tea Growing in the New Territories, RASHKB article
- The Myrobalan tree – traditional Chinese throat candy and summer pillows
- Sunset Survivors book published, covers a wide range of dying, traditional Hong Kong industries
- A Joss-stick Mill in Tsuen Wan
- The origins of the name Hong Kong – the export of incense
- A water powered tilt-hammer incense mill
- Export of ‘kuan-hsiang’ 莞香 incense from Hong Kong Ts’un, Aberdeen Harbour – Ming Dynasty