The ripe fruiting heads are gathered by a man using a climbing sling, with which he encircles the tree and his waist, and by means of a skilful manipulation of the part in contact with the trunk and remote from the body, he proceeds to ascend the tree rapidly, almost as though walking up it. On reaching the crown, a number of dead leaves have to be removed in order to get at the fruit stem. These are cut by means of a “cutlass” or “machete,” which the climber carries, and are thrown to the ground. Only one head ripens at a time upon each tree, and the time occupied in climbing and cutting out the fruit head is estimated at about eight minutes. A photograph showing a native climbing a palm tree is reproduced (Fig. 11). Both the Mendi and Timani races distinguish the fruit, at different periods during the advance towards maturity, by special names given with regard to the appearance. Identifications of the same series of fruits by different individuals have shown that these names are widely used. Although it will be seen that in the Gold Coast and Nigeria the natives recognise a number of different varieties of fruit, this does not appear to be the case in Sierra Leone. The thin-shelled forms, so well known to the natives of the former countries, appear unknown, except around Sherbro, where there are a few trees recognised as productive of this type of fruit. In the appearance of the mature fruit, the presence or absence of black at the apex seems to be of equally common occurrence, but no importance is attached to this feature. The Sierra Leone form appears to be at a disadvantage with regard to the proportion of oily pericarp covering the nut, as well as in the great thickness of its shell. Comparing it with the varieties obtained in the Gold Coast, it is probably nearest to, if not identical with, that called “Abe pa.” When the percentage of oil extracted from the fruit of the Sierra Leone trees is compared with that from other parts of West Africa, it at once becomes apparent that the amount is small. The results of three series of experiments, made in different parts of the country, showed that the fibrous pericarp, which contains the oil, constituted only about 30 per cent. of the whole, the nut containing the kernel being large and approximating 70 per cent. Palm oil extracted by native methods gave 1·201, 5·47, 5·637, and 8·326 per cent. respectively in four tests. If these results are compared with the extractions of oil from the several Gold Coast varieties, the deficiency is very marked. Compare _Bulletin of the Imperial Institute_, vol. vii. (1909), pp. 364-71. A close examination of the local fruit shows that the outer fibrous portion or pericarp, which alone contains the palm oil, is very thin, whereas the hard shell surrounding the kernel is thick. The kernel represents about 15 per cent. of the total weight of the fruit, and is largely exported from the country for the extraction of another kind of oil.