The Agricultural labor of this part of Africa is certainly very great,
and merits the attention of every intelligent inquirer; from the simple
fact that, so far as it exhibits the industry of the inhabitants, it
shows the means which may be depended upon for a development of the
commercial resources of the country.
Palm Oil
Palm oil is produced in great abundance, as a staple commodity among
themselves, as well as for exportation since the common light for houses
consists of palm oil burnt in native manufactured lamps, some
constructed of iron and others of earthenware. The oil of the nut is the
most general in use among the natives, both for light and cooking,
because it is the richest, being the most unctuous. This use of the
nut-oil is certainly an antiquated custom among the people of this
region, whilst those contiguous to Liberia have recently learned that
the kernels could be put to commercial use, by the discovery or rather
practical application by Mr. Herron, of Grand Bassa, Liberia, and
subsequent demand by the French traders. The fact that the Yorubas
generally produce their charcoal from the hull of the palm nut, is an
evidence of the long-continued and abundant use of the latter article
for the manufacture of oil. They have regular establishments for the
manufacture of the palm oil, with vats and apparatus (simple though they
be), places and persons for each process: as bruising the fruit from the
nut, boiling, carrying the pulp to a vat, where it is pressed and washed
to extract the oil; one to skim it off from the top of the
liquid--another to carry off the fiber of the pulp or bruised fruit,
which fiber is also appropriated to kindling and other uses. There is no
such method of extracting the oil, as the mistaken idea so frequently
reported by African traders from Europe and America, that the natives
bruise the nut with stones in holes made in the ground, thereby losing a
large percentage of the oil. Even among the crudest they know better
than this, and many use shallow troughs, made of wood in some parts of
Africa, as the Grebo, Golah, and some other peoples on the western
coast, adjacent to Liberia.
Palm Trees Cultivated. Camwood. Ivory
All through the Yoruba country the palm tree is cultivated, being
regularly trimmed and pruned, and never cut down in clearing a farm,
except when from age the tree has ceased to bear, or is of the male
species, when it is cut down for the wine, which is the sap, extracted
from the trunk, in a horizontal position, by boring a hole near the top
and catching it in a vessel, when it is drunk either before, during, or
after fermentation.
Camwood is also very plentiful, but owing to its great weight and the
inconvenience at present of transportation, it does not enter
extensively into the commerce of these parts, except as dyestuffs in the
native markets. Gum elastic or India rubber is plentiful.
Ivory enters largely into commerce, being brought by "middle men" from
the distant interior.
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