The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom / Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.

by P. L. Simmonds

On making an effort to extract the oil from the kernel (which was by means of a little machine, of our own invention and contrivance), we found that our thoughts upon the matter were correct, that the oil possessed admirable beauty in its appearance, with a taste, when used for cooking purposes, unexcelled by that of the best lard.

After being made and set by, it assumes a consistence like that of hard butter, and has to be cut out with a knife or spoon; its appearance in this state is very beautiful, presenting such richness, clearness, and adaptedness to table purposes, that one would not suppose that this oil is obtained from the same tree from which palm oil is, for there is as much disparity both in their appearance and taste as there is between lard and butter.

The exquisite transparency which the kernel oil bears in a liquid state, especially when undergoing the purifying process, is a cause of admiration. On showing some of it to several foreigners, I was asked in two instances which was the oil and which the water, or whether it was oil or water; thus you may have an idea of its clearness. We make two qualities of this oil, differing however in taste only, the one being for table uses and the other for exportation and for whatever use they may choose to put it to abroad.

There have been many conjectures in respect to the uses to which this oil might he put in foreign countries; but that it will be a useful article, and especially in our trade, when made more extensively, there can be no doubt, for the quantity in which it might be had would undoubtedly introduce it to a respectable rank among the other commodities of our productive country so eagerly sought after.

There is nothing, to my knowledge, that can be turned to as good account and at the same time so abundant and easily obtained, as the palm kernel, for they are as common as the pebbles of stony land, especially in this section of the country, where we have palm orchards of spontaneous growth for miles together, and interspersing the surrounding country in almost innumerable numbers.

According to statistical ascertainment, there is on an average exported from this port, thirty thousand gallons of palm oil annually, from which fact we ascertain demonstratively that the palm kernels which are thrown away here (leaving out the whole leeward coast of our possessions) are sufficient to make thirty thousand gallons of oil, more or less. This is not at all a problematical speculation of ours, but we feel authorised to advance this assertion from the fact that one bushel of kernels, completely worked up, will make two gallons of oil. But to work them up is the thing, plentiful as they are; we however, hesitate not to say, that it can be done and probably will be.

Having now so far conquered the difficulties attending the manufacture of this oil, as that we can safely vouch a reasonable supply for home consumption, we most cheerfully recommend it to the citizens of this Republic, whose demands for it, for eating purposes, we doubt not can be supplied, and on very reasonable terms.

We will assure our customers that there will not be an ounce of dirt or sediment in a hundred pounds of our oil.

The recent abolition of the soap duty, by stimulating the demand for palm oil, will have an instant effect on the trade and commerce of Western Africa, by confirming the suppression of the slave trade, and giving an additional impetus to negro improvement. It will also increase the production for England of ground nuts, whence the oil so largely used in making continental soaps is expressed. "When (observes a recent writer) the Portuguese first treated with that coast, they found palm oil and ground nuts articles of native food, and so they remained down to a period within living memory. So used, they neither required any cultivation nor gave rise to any notions of property. Though whole tracts of country are crowded by the oil-palm tree, little care was taken of what was, in fact, superabundant; and as for ground nuts, they were simply dug up as prudence or necessity dictated. Some thirty years ago a cask or two of palm oil was sent home from the Gold Coast; it met so ready a sale that it was further inquired after, and the total amount now imported into England ranges from 25,000 to 30,000 tons annually. The exportation of ground nuts is even larger; but, owing to our excise on soap, they had heretofore gone principally to France—-to Marseilles especially.

"Of these two articles, it is to be observed, the Western Coast of Africa appears to have a monopoly; and with respect to palm oil, it is further to be remarked, that it is exactly behind those ports and up those rivers, which were formerly the great nests of the slave trade, that its production is largest; and just as the slave trade there has been crushed, a commerce in palm oil has sprung up and replaced it. There are men alive who recollect the slave trade flourishing on the Gold Coast; it has long been extinct there, and palm oil is now largely exported. It is but a very few years ago since that traffic appeared to be irrepressible at the mouths of the Niger: it is now expelled, and thence Liverpool obtains, instead, its supplies of palm oil. So also, later still, at Whydah, and the other ports of the kingdom of Dahomy, and along the Lagoon, which connects Dahomy with the Benin River, there the Spanish slave dealers are themselves inaugurating a commerce in palm oil. Already the trade in that quarter is considerable, and it would have extended much more rapidly than it has done, were it not that disorder and warfare in the interior have been promoted and prolonged by the indiscreet zeal of some of our own naval officers and by the desire of some of our missionaries to rule at Abeeokutu, at Lagos, and at Badagray. When, however, order and tranquillity are restored, a most important trade will undoubtedly arise there. A generation ago, when palm oil was merely an article of food, there was, we have said, no property in palm trees. Since, however, a large foreign demand has arisen for this oil, the plantations, as already they are called, begin to be cared for; and lately the title to some of them has been disputed in our courts on the Gold Coast: a contention which constitutes the first evidence we have received of the value of land, not actually under their own cultivation, being recognised by the natives. Thus the feeling of property and the desire for accumulation are springing up out of the palm oil trade; and they are everywhere the germs of nascent civilisation. It is no light question, therefore, thus involved in an increased demand for this article; it may produce African consequences of incalculable importance to the whole human race. It is in France hitherto that the great consumption of ground nut oil has occurred. It is there used in the manufacture of soaps, which, though preferred abroad, are little used in England—very much because of the Excise laws. The specific gravity of the soap made out of ground nut oil is higher than those laws permitted; in consequence we could neither make it for our own use nor for foreign exportation; and thus France has substantially the soap trade of the world. By the repeal of the duty, England will be enabled to compete—in this, as in all other trades—with France abroad."