by reason of the ravages of the tsetse fly, no cattle can be bred, and
when railway communication has cleared the infected regions, a thriving
cattle export industry to the coast will be developed. The increased
prosperity of the rubber districts of the south, especially Molondu,
Dume and Lomie, has led, in recent years, to a demand for meat among the
natives, and this has been supplied from the Hausa and Fulani herds. In
1911 about 20,000 head of large stock and 8,000 of small stock were sent
from Adamana to the south, and this is estimated to mean an exchange
between the north and the south to the value of about £150,000.
As is usual in West Africa, the natives possess neglected goats, sheep
and fowls, and in some cases pigs, though this is only true to a very
small extent in the southern districts.
NATIVE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION.
The chief agricultural products of the Cameroons are rubber, palm
kernels, cocoa and palm oil, and the Protectorate may be said, in a
general way, to present three chief agricultural areas: the southern,
with rubber in increasing production; the middle province around the
Cameroon river basin, with their plantations and areas rich in oil
palms; and the grass country, northward, suited specially for cattle
breeding. Nearly all the rubber exploited has been derived from the
native exploitation of wild plants. Almost all the male population of
Lomie, Molondu, Dume, and Dengdeng was concerned in rubber collection in
1910-11, in which years more than 1,000 coloured middlemen bought the
rubber from the natives and sold it to the forty-nine mercantile firms
who had no fewer than 230 stations established for its purchase. The
comparatively small share of rubber plantations in the whole production
of the Protectorate is shown by the fact that, of a total export of
5,957,516 lbs. in 1911, all except 23,912 lbs. was from wild plants;
whilst in 1912 cultivated plants accounted for only 53,040 lbs. in a
total shipment of 6,184,222 lbs. The results of the attempts to induce
the natives to take up new cultivations depend on the presence or
absence in their district of wild plants that they can exploit. Whilst,
for example, the inhabitants of the Lomie district, who still know of
rich stands of wild rubber plants, are hardly to be excited to commence
rubber cultivation, it has been experienced in Kribi, where these do
not exist, that the distribution of young plants are gratefully received
and readily planted.
It is also recorded that oil-palm cultivation has been introduced with
some success to the natives, in the districts of Lomie and Yaunde, but
any “cultivation” by the natives is very simple in nature, consisting
merely in the keeping of the stands clear of “bush.” The large decrease
in the exports of ivory in recent years is due in great measure to the
exhaustion of the stores of ivory hoarded by the natives and the extent
of elephant shooting in the past ten years. The exports in 1910 amounted
to sixteen tons, valued at £124, and although there was a slight
increase of quantity in the following year, the export in 1912 showed a
large diminution. The other native products are chiefly djair nuts, shea
nuts, kola, and gum arabic, but there has been comparatively little
activity as regards the actual cultivation of crops, because of the
natural richness of the country in products which enable the inhabitants
to buy what they require. The raising of food crops exists, however, for
special demands, such as arise near railways, administrative stations
and larger towns, and the chief places on the caravan routes and rivers.
Near such places the native raises maize, plantains, bananas, cassava,
sweet potatoes and ground nuts, as well as sorghum (dura or dari) in the
northern districts, and some kola and sesame in isolated places. In
several districts a certain amount of tobacco is planted; there is also
some little fruit raising, notably in the villages of Ambam. In the
highlands of Dschang, and in other places, such as Ebelowe and Yaunde,
new crops, such as the English potato, “black bush” beans and turnips,
for which the climate seems to be suited, have been introduced. Numerous
inhabitants of the districts of Duala and Edea have in recent years laid
out farms for the raising of cassava, plantains, maize, yams, and other
products.
North of the watershed the principal crops are guinea-corn, millet,
ground-nuts, cassava, and sweet potatoes; cotton and tobacco are also
cultivated by the Chamba pagans, Zumperis and Munchis. The corn is
planted in April at the end of the rainy season, the method of
cultivation being as follows. The ground is first cleared of weeds and
the remains of the last year’s crop. It is then prepared for sowing by
digging shallow trenches with a rough kind of hoe, the earth being piled
up to form ridges between the trenches. Guinea-corn (_Sorghum vulgare_),
the staple food of the country, is planted in these ridges. It grows to
a great height, often fifteen to twenty feet, and is harvested in
November. Millet is planted in the furrows; it ripens rapidly and is
harvested in July. Cotton is ready for picking after December; tobacco
and cassava are cultivated during the dry season on the hillsides, the
streams being used for irrigation.
From October to March, during the dry season, the natives are engaged in
stacking their corn into mud-walled granaries, and threshing what they
require for immediate use. These months are also spent in repairing the
damage done to the villages, grass being cut and tied into bundles for
thatching roofs, and making new zana matting. The dry season is also the
hunting season, when the long grass has been laid low by fire. This
grass-burning is an annual institution, although the Government has
given orders prohibiting it on account of the damage done to trees. But
the hill tribes care very little for trees or grass, and a good deal for
meat.
As in all parts where the tsetse fly prevails, and the employment of
cattle for ploughing is impossible, the land is chiefly cultivated with
the hoe; and as the West African hoe is a tool which calls for the
exercise of patience rather than skill or strength, the native leaves
the field work to his women. From this form of servitude the women will
not be emancipated until cattle are rendered immune from tsetse fly and
the hoe is supplanted by the plough.
PLANTATION CULTIVATION.
The Cameroons were regarded by the Germans as a plantation country of
the highest promise, and the proximity of the Cameroon Mountain to the
coast, facilitating the realisation of the products, render this part of
the colony an ideal area for the planter. All the largest plantations
are situated in this district, which has been extensively developed, and
its products have already assumed considerable proportions in the export
statistics of the dependency. The laying out of a plantation in Cameroon
is by no means an easy task, as the fertile soil must be drawn from the
primeval forest. And as the Cameroon primeval forest has no equal for
vastness and impenetrability, laborious and costly preliminary work is
necessary before any real planting can be attempted. On the whole it is
very much the same as in East Africa, with the distinction that as a
rule in the latter colony there is only the so-called bush to clear,
while in Cameroon one has to deal with high-grown primeval forest.
The cultivation of cocoa prospers on the slopes of the Cameroon
Mountain, where the climate and soil resemble those of the adjacent
Islands of St. Thomas and Fernando-Po, and its cultivation is almost
confined to the Cameroon Mountain and to some plantations in Sanaga and
Kampo. It is to be hoped that with the further opening up of the
country, many districts will be found suitable for its cultivation. In
this case the many years’ experience on the Cameroon Mountain will
facilitate the spreading. The cocoa-tree is, on an average, six to eight
m. high, with a trunk diameter of about fifteen to twenty-five cm., and
it begins to produce after four or five years. At harvest time the fruit
must be carefully gathered, to avoid injuring the tree. The opening of
the fruit to obtain the seeds is done with a cane, or by beating open
the fruit on a stone. When the seeds are taken from the fruit, they
undergo the important process of fermentation. It would take too long to
relate the different methods employed, but it may be mentioned that the
fermentation process affects the taste and aroma of the cocoa very much,
drawing away the bitterness of the bean, modifying its sharp taste, and
developing the aroma and the red-brown colour.
A still further proceeding is the drying of the beans, which is done
either by the heat of the sun and the fresh air on threshing floors with
removable roof, or by artificial heat in drying apparatus. Some days
after the cocoa has been carefully dried, it is ready for exportation.
It is packed in sacks or matting, and in the past it has been dispatched
principally to Germany to be worked up in the factories. The kernels are
ground and the grease when extracted is used in the form of cocoa-butter
for medicinal purposes and for the fabrication of soap. The export of
cocoa, which amounted to 2,450 tons in 1908, reached a total of 4,550
tons, valued at £212,500, in 1912.
RUBBER.
The attention of the rubber dealers was at first confined to certain
lianas, especially the Landolphia florida, which was regarded as the
greatest rubber-yielding plant in the colonies. But in the beginning of
the century it was discovered that the great virgin forests of South
Cameroon contained vast numbers of Kickxia-elastica trees, and that
extensive subsidiary tracts covered with the same plant existed in the
savannahs of South Adamana, in the Kumbo highlands, and the region of
Lake Chad. Kickxia-elastica, known in the trade as “silk rubber,” was
first discovered on the West African Coast in Lagos in 1894, and by
October of the following year the exports had reached well over a
million pounds. The eagerness of the natives to exploit this very
valuable product led to the total destruction of the rubber-yielding
trees, with the result that by 1906 the export had entirely ceased. Dr.
Schlecter introduced the Kickxia rubber trees from Lagos into the
Cameroons, where he proved that 1½ lbs. of dry rubber may be obtained
from the six-year-old trees, a result which was more than confirmed
subsequently by Dr. O. Warburg, the well-known authority on rubber. The
first shipments of rubber from the Kickxia trees were obtained from the
wild rubber trees known as Funtumia-elastica, and it has only been
during the last few years that the Germans, realising that the Kickxia
rubber trees are indigenous to the colony, have cultivated it, and there
are now large plantations of Kickxia in the Cameroons containing
millions of trees, which are doing well.
From the tapping of wild Funtumia trees, it is known that this species
yields latex more readily than others, and that it is almost as
sensitive to drastic tapping as Castilloa. Tapping of the cultivated
tree has occurred experimentally in Cameroon. These trees, however, do
not stand closely-planted, but singly or in rows, and the results must
be judged accordingly. It can be assumed that from 3 to 3¾ ozs. are to
be expected from six-year-old trees planted at good distances from each
other, and 1 to 2 ozs. from closely-planted trees. The method of tapping
practised in the last experiments with Funtumia differed from all other
methods, in that vertical incisions the whole length of the trunk were
made. As to its advantage over the herring-bone system, further
observations and a more extended series of comparative tapping trials
are first necessary. The rubber is procured by boiling the latex after
diluting it with water; treatment with hydrofluoric acid yields a better
product. Although Funtumia rubber is at present inferior in quality to
that of Hevea and Ficus, and at most is equal to that of the Castilloa,
still it may be confidently anticipated that with more suitable
preparation it will yield a good serviceable product.
THE COST OF PRODUCTION.
Most of the Kickxia plantations are laid out on land which has been
cleared of jungle, a process which does not entail a heavy outlay. The
expenses, including all costs for inspection, tools, labour, &c.,
amount to about £10 per acre. A fair supply of native labour is
available, and the average wage, including board, is about £10 per
annum. The cost of the upkeep of the planted areas should not exceed
30s. per acre for the first year, 22s. 6d. per acre for the second year,
and 18s. 6d. and 10s. for the third and fourth years respectively. The
estimated inclusive cost of tapping the trees and delivering the produce
in Europe should not exceed 1s. 3d. per lb. The value of Kickxia rubber,
if properly prepared, is almost equal to that of the best Para rubber,
and it is certainly safe to estimate that it will always fetch within
1s. of Para. These figures compare very favourably with those obtaining
in other plantations, and they are given here as an indication that in
its rubber exports alone the Cameroon territory has a profitable future
before it.
In considering the question as to whether Germany will ever be in a
position to supply her own demands in rubber from her own colonies, Dr.
Paul Preuss, writing in the _India Rubber Journal_, says that it depends
on three factors: (1) Soil, (2) Climate, (3) Labour. “Regarding soil,”
he says, “the Colonies of Cameroon and New Guinea alone possess several
hundred thousand acres of land suited for the cultivation of the most
valuable rubber trees. The climate there is also very favourable. Taking
the annual requirements of Germany in rubber at 16,000 tons, this
quantity can be produced from an area of 150,000 to 170,000 acres
exclusively planted with Hevea, and from 200,000 to 250,000 acres under
cultivation with the various species already planted, but with Hevea
predominating. Even if the demand for the raw material should
considerably increase, the answer to this question would be an
affirmative as regards soil and climate; whether, however, with the
accompanying development in the cultivation of cacao, cotton, cocoa-nut
and oil-palms, &c., the necessary labour will be procurable for such an
extension in rubber cultivation, the question cannot be answered.” It
has been stated that in the coming years, when the rubber plantations
are ready for tapping, and the tobacco plantations are demanding the
services of thousands of natives, the insufficiency of labour will prove
a serious problem, and the importation of Chinese labour was submitted
to the consideration of the German Government as a feasible solution.
RICE, COFFEE, COCOA, AND TOBACCO.
During recent years the cultivation of rice has received more attention,
especially in the experimental gardens. The forest land inhabitants have
also begun to lay out water and hill rice fields in great extent, and it
is only a question of time for the Cameroons to become a rice producing
country. But whether the negroes will ever be capable of carrying out
the troublesome cultivation of water rice, with the necessary
transplanting and careful watering, is regarded as doubtful.
One can depend with greater confidence on the exportation of maize and
millet from the forest land and the drier hinterland, as soon as means
of transport are provided, as it has been found that the black can be
entrusted with this cultivation. Rice, as well as maize and millet, and
also bananas and pines, which grow in great quantities, would be, as
native cultivation solely, open to question.
Regarding the cultivation of coffee, the greatest hopes were raised in
the first years of occupation of the colony. The Cameroon Mountains
resemble in every respect the island of San Thomé and Fernando-Po,
where, in 1884, a flourishing coffee cultivation existed. Nothing was
more natural than the expectation than that a fresh impetus would be
given to coffee cultivation on the mainland, but these hopes were not
fulfilled, and now scarcely any coffee plantations are to be found. Tea
was planted in Buea by Deistel, and the tea-shrub developed splendidly.
Plantation cocoa has borne the preponderating share of the total exports
of that product in recent years, the areas in bearing having increased
as follows: 1909, 13,328 acres; 1910, 15,290 acres; 1911, 17,560 acres;
1912, 20,438 acres. The large increase of exports in 1912 is attributed
to the very favourable weather in that year. It is stated that more
care, with artificial manuring, is wanted in the cultivation, and that
the chief diseases and pests of cocoa, such as brown rot, “cockchafer
grubs,” and “bark bugs,” are not under control. Nevertheless the future
for cocoa is believed to be good.
Much was expected of tobacco planting, especially in Bibundi, where
tobacco was planted at first, and the quality was excellent, although
the cultivation was proved to be too dear and too difficult on account
of the dampness of the climate. In 1902 there was a deficit of 200,000
marks, and for some time the cultivation was discontinued. Attempts
were made in 1911 to encourage tobacco planting in the German colonies
by the guarantees of a definite price for quantities of at least 100
cwts. raised and prepared in those colonies. The planted area in
plantations in the Cameroons increased from fifty acres in 1911 to 383
in 1912; 230 acres of the latter had yielded a crop. In view of the
expensive nature of the cultivation, it was hoped that Cameroons’ leaf
for wrappers would gain a good market.
The planting of the Kola-nut was undertaken very energetically, and in
1904, 400 were planted in Garna, but with what result is unknown. The
experimental cultivations in the gardens of Victoria have produced no
palpable result. The trees flourished and bore fruit, but it was
entirely consumed by worms. The natives, on the other hand, cultivate
this tree in great extent in the forest land, and especially in the
Kimbo highland. Among different plants, especially in the trial gardens,
are the vanilla, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, and other spices. Vanilla was
quite destroyed by blight in Victoria. Pepper, cloves and cinnamon all
furnish excellent productions.
PALM OIL CULTIVATION.
The oil-palm in the old days was the glorious heritage of the native,
who found a ready sale for such oil as his women-folk were able to
extract by a slow and laborious process. It is likely that the native
believed that so long as he retained the tree and the fruit, his
time-honoured oil business would never be taken from him, but the great
and growing demand for oil has beaten him, and he is fast losing the
trade because he can no longer make the quantity that the market
requires. Palm oil is now requisitioned for a hundred-and-one new uses.
It is no longer the monopoly of the soap-maker or the chandler. Palm oil
deodorised by hydrogen is needed for the “nut butters” of the
vegetarian; makers of nitro-glycerine explosives derive their glycerine
constituents more and more from palm oil; whilst the exploiters of
novelties in metal polishes ransack the ship’s hold for leakages from
the palm-oil cask. Oil must be had in increasing quantity; machinery
speeds up the production; yet still the cry is for more oil, until the
European himself attempts to become owner of thousands of trees, eagerly
and not too scrupulously encroaching on lands that once were considered
native, in the vain hope of finding a speedier road to prosperity.
THE PALM TREE AND ITS PRODUCTS.
The profitable carrying on of this industry depends on the demand for
palm oil and the use which can be made of the residues. That the supply
of palm kernels themselves should decline is unthinkable. The steady
increase in their growth in all parts of the West African Coast is
conclusive evidence of their almost limitless possibilities. Moreover,
the statistics clearly show the extensive nature of the demand. Great
Britain and Germany are no longer the only purchasers; South Africa has
entered the market, as well as Holland and France, though their lots are
comparatively small, and could not in any way effect the profitable
exploitation of kernel-crushing on a large scale.
In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute, entitled “The War:
British and German Trade in Nigeria,” Mr. R. E. Dennett, of the Forest
Department, Nigeria, made it abundantly evident that Germany had been
farming the commerce of the Protectorates to the detriment of the
Britisher. He showed from statistics that Germany’s export trade to
Nigeria greatly exceeded ours, while of the Nigerian produce which left
the country, Germany in 1913 took nearly all the copra, half the cocoa,
more than two-thirds of the palm kernels, one-eighth of the palm oil,
half the hides, one-third of the mahogany, more than half the
ground-nuts, over a third of the shea nuts, and all the palm kernel
cake.
On the subject of the palm tree and its products, Mr. Dennett is both
interesting and instructive, and in view of its inevitable increase in
importance as a British industry, the following extracts from his paper
may be usefully reproduced here.
“People who have little or no knowledge of the palm tree (_Elæis
guineensis_) confuse the palm fruit with the palm kernel. The palm
kernel of commerce is the seed of the palm tree. This is surrounded by a
hard shell, and it is then called the palm nut. This shell is in its
turn covered by an oily fibrous matter, and is then known as the palm
fruit. If we take this fruit and cut it into two parts, we can see these
three parts of the fruit more distinctly; first the outer yellow
covering or the fibrous pericarp, from which the palm oil of commerce is
extracted; then the shell, and finally the kernel, from which the white
palm kernel oil is extracted.
“The composition of this fruit is as follows:--
Pericarp Oil 18 per cent.
Fibre and Moisture 12 “
Shell and Disk 58 “
Kernel 12 “
---
Total 100 “
“The uses of the palm oil tree are various. It yields the palm oil and
kernels of commerce. It gives the native a drink he is very fond of,
called palm wine, which, when fermented, gives our cooks yeast for
bread-making. The shells of the nuts are used by blacksmiths as fuel, as
they give off great heat. At the present time there are three methods of
making palm oil: (_a_) from the fresh fruit, (_b_) from partially
fermented fruit, and (_c_) from well fermented fruit.
THE NATIVE AS CULTIVATOR.
“Bunches of fruit having been severed from the parent tree, are sliced
and hammered by natives, using long poles, until the fruit becomes
detached from the bunch. The fresh fruit is either prepared at once into
what is called soft oil, or allowed to ferment, or partially ferment,
and made into hard oil. The procedure followed in making either of
these kinds of oil is much the same. The fruit is placed either into
canoes or clay troughs, water is poured over them, and then, by treading
or beating, the fibrous matter containing the oil is separated from the
nuts. The nuts are then taken out and placed in the sun to dry, while
the fibrous matter, by further beating or treading, is made to yield the
oil which floats to the surface of the water. This oil is ladled out
into pots and boiled, and then allowed to rest, so that all dirt or
sediment falls to the bottom of the pot. This clean oil, soft or hard,
is the palm oil of commerce. This oil is taken in calabashes or tins to
the traders’ factory, which, generally speaking, is near to a river or a
railway, and there put into casks and sent to the nearest port for
shipment to Europe.
“There are, practically speaking, two kinds of palm oil exported from
the West Coast, i.e., hard and soft, but soft oil is of two
qualities--Lagos and ordinary soft oil. As a rule, Lagos and soft oil is
worth £3 to £4 more than hard oil, the reason being that there is about
8 per cent. more glycerine in the soft than in the hard. The percentage
of glycerine varies in inverse proportion with the acidity.