The people of the Central Province are generally less careful in their farming methods; the Benis often planting their grain crops in only partially cleared land. Farther to the north in the same province a better system is noticeable among the Ishans, Ifons, and the people of Agbede. During recent years, owing to the energetic efforts of the Forestry Department, the cultivation and better treatment of the indigenous rubber tree (_Funtumia elastica_) have been extensively adopted, especially by the people in the neighbourhood of Benin City, where the climate is well suited to the species. In addition to rubber, cocoa and kola plantations might prove successful in the same localities, but as yet no large plantations of either exist. In the Eastern Province farming is generally of poor quality until the region of heavy rainfall is left, when extremely large areas are met with, highly cultivated, with the earth thrown up into loose mounds, often five or six feet in height, for the purpose of growing yams, maize, pepper, okra, Guinea corn, pumpkins, etc., all of which are found planted upon each mound; the yams being carefully trained to climb along fibre strings towards central poles. =Principal Crops.=—The chief crops grown in the Western Province are maize, cotton, cassava, yams, sweet potatoes, groundnuts, and to a small extent Guinea corn, sugar-cane, tobacco, Colocasia yams, peppers, okra, rice, eggplant, and native beans. Indigo is extracted from _Lonchocarpus cyanescens_, which occurs in a wild state, and is preserved when making clearances for farms. The _Indigofera spp._ are used to a smaller degree for the same purpose. (See Sierra Leone Section, p. 39; also _Bulletin of the Imperial Institute_, 1909, p. 319; 1918, p. 11; and 1919, p. 31.) Fruits are not grown plentifully, and are generally left in an uncultivated condition. The chief kinds are pineapples, bananas, pawpaws, akee apple (_Blighia sapida_), oranges, and guavas. There are several fruits and spices which are collected from the forest strips, but, taken generally, the Western Province people are not great fruit eaters. On the sea coast and for a considerable distance inland, coconut plantations are common, and, near Badagry, copra is prepared from them for shipment. The crops cultivated in the Central Province are similar to those of the Western, but yams become more, and groundnuts less prominent. Large quantities of palm oil are prepared, and rubber is collected, the labour available for farm work being thereby reduced. The most important product of the Eastern Province is undoubtedly palm oil, but fairly large quantities of yams and maize are grown outside the forest zone and are transported by native canoes to the coast ports, in the vicinity of which there is very little cultivation.