HEADS OF OIL PALM FRUIT.
At Victoria, in German Cameroons, we saw an elaborate set of machinery for dealing in turn with the oily fibrous pericarp of the nut, and later, extracting the kernel from the inner stone. The latter process was that of a general crushing, then throwing the entire mass into a brine bath and so separating the shells from the kernels, which were then taken out and dried in the sun. This process, while being infinitely more expeditious, has the obvious drawback that a large proportion of the kernels are so bruised and broken that it entails a considerable wastage of oil.
The Palm in Tonnage and in Figures Sterling.
Exports in round figures for the year 1911—
| Oil. | Kernels. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tons. | Values. | Tons. | Values. | |
| French Senegal | 1 | 36 | 1,418 | 14,300 |
| ” Guinea | 53 | 1,300 | 4,500 | 36,600 |
| ” Ivory Coast | 5,800 | 107,100 | 5,340 | 45,500 |
| ” Dahomey | 14,400 | 254,100 | 34,200 | 400,000 |
| ” Congo | 125 | 3,100 | 570 | 7,600 |
| British Gambia | — | — | 447 | 4,758 |
| ” Sierra Leone | 2,902 | 69,930 | 42,893 | 649,347 |
| ” Gold Coast | 6,441 | 128,916 | 13,254 | 175,891 |
| ” Nigeria | 77,180 | 1,696,875 | 176,390 | 2,574,405 |
| German Cameroons | 3,000 | 63,000 | 13,500 | 177,530 |
| ” Togoland | 3,050 | 61,600 | 8,100 | 101,700 |
| Belgian Congo (approximately) | 700 | 20,000 | 2,500 | 40,000 |
| 113,652 | £2,405,957 | 303,112 | £4,227,631 | |
TOTAL OUTPUT.
| Tons. | Values. | |
|---|---|---|
| Oil | 113,652 | £2,405,957 |
| Kernels | 303,112 | £4,227,631 |
| 416,764 | £6,633,588 |
The proportionate output from the palm trees from the different colonies of West Africa is therefore—