cracking palm nuts; now this work is left to boys and women. After the
nuts have been dried in the sun, they are heaped up under little sheds
to protect them from the rain. In places where rocks are plentiful the
nuts are taken there and cracked on them by a stone held in the hand of
the cracker. In other places the nuts are put on a block of wood resting
on the ground between the cracker’s legs and struck with a piece of iron
held in the cracker’s right hand. In this way one worker will crack from
15 lbs. to 25 lbs. of kernels per day. The kernels are then packed in
different kinds of baskets and taken to markets near rivers, where they
are bought by native middlemen. Competition is very keen, and so these
middlemen are tempted to adulterate the kernels by adding shells to them
or by soaking them in water for two or three days. Finally, they are
taken in canoes down rivers or by rail to the European traders and sold
by measurement at so much a bushel.... Think of it! 241,000 tons of palm
kernels shipped to Hamburg in 1913, and nearly every nut containing one
kernel is cracked by hand.”
THE FUTURE OF PALM OIL AND KERNEL INDUSTRY.
Although the palm kernel industry has not attained important dimensions
in the Cameroons, there is no reason why it should not form one of the
staple products of the colony, or why the whole of the trade in palm
kernels should not be transferred from Germany to this country. Hitherto
the quarter of a million tons of palm kernels--valued at over
£4,000,000--exported annually from British West Africa has gone to
Germany, where crushing-mills and manufacturing plants have been
established, while considerable quantities of high-priced kernel oil, in
manufactured or unmanufactured form, have been exported from Germany to
Great Britain. About 50 per cent. of the produce of the crushed palm
kernels is marketed in the form of oil, and the balance is made up into
palm kernel cake, practically the whole of which is consumed in Germany,
where it commands a good price and is in great demand, especially among
dairy farmers.
This profitable German industry has now been suspended owing to the war,
which has rendered it necessary for planters to find a new market for
their produce, and the opportunity seems propitious for an endeavour to
establish it in Great Britain upon a substantial scale. With a view to
arousing interest in the subject in commercial and agricultural circles,
Sir Owen Phillipps, K.C.M.G., Chairman of the West African section of
the London Chamber of Commerce, has issued a timely pamphlet in which
the present position of the trade is described and its potentialities
are indicated. The Anglicisation of the industry, in addition to
promoting Imperial commercial intercourse, and securing increased
industrial employment in the United Kingdom, would furnish British
farmers--who are complaining of the enhanced prices of present
foods--with a new supply of a relatively cheap and excellent feeding
material.
The profitable exploitation of this crushing industry depends upon the
capacity of the British market to absorb a larger supply of palm kernel
oil and upon the possibility of inducing British farmers to adopt the
use of palm kernel cake. There are at present two mills, both at
Liverpool, for dealing with palm kernels, capable together of crushing
annually about 70,000 tons, leaving a balance unprovided for of at least
180,000 tons. To cope with this additional quantity several of the great
milling companies of Liverpool, London, Hull, &c., have already made and
are making alterations in their machinery in order to crush palm
kernels, so that in the near future much greater quantities will be
dealt with. A new mill on the Thames, at Erith, is also being erected,
which, when completed after the war, will be capable of crushing a very
large quantity.
PALM KERNEL CAKE FOOD.
In order to ascertain whether British farmers would be prepared to make
a larger use of palm kernel cake, Sir Owen Phillipps placed himself in
communication with the leading agricultural authorities in all parts of
the country--principals of agricultural colleges, experimental stations,
&c., and these gentlemen have taken up the matter with the greatest
enthusiasm. They are practically unanimous in asserting that the fact of
large quantities of palm kernel cake being available at a price
comparing favourably with that of other similar foods (now becoming more
expensive than formerly) has only to be brought to the notice of farmers
to ensure a greatly increased demand; in fact, that farmers are looking
out for a new and comparatively cheap feeding material. Many of the
principals and professors of the colleges referred to in various parts
of the country have undertaken an elaborate series of comparative
experimental feeding tests with palm kernel and other cakes, so as to
demonstrate the merits of the former. When these are completed the
results will be made widely known to the agricultural community.
In an article published in the _Field_ on “Palm Kernel Cake,” Mr. F. J.
Lloyd, F.I.C., points out that a really good cake, made from this
product, is now available in this country. The nutrients in palm kernel
cake are quite exceptionally digestible, and one German authority says
that, “owing to its pleasant taste, its great digestibility, and the way
in which cattle thrive on it, no cake fetches so high a price.” It
increases the yield of milk, improves the quality as regards butter fat,
and is said to impart a good colour to the butter, so that it is
especially valuable for winter feeding. Though mainly used in Germany
for dairy cattle, Professor Lloyd adds that it has also been given with
satisfactory results to steers, sheep, and pigs.
PALM KERNEL STATISTICS.
The _Bulletin_ of the Imperial Institute contains an article calling
attention to the magnitude of the trade in palm kernels, and discussing
its commercial aspect. The following table shows the quantities and
values from each of the chief producing countries in West Africa in
1912:--
_Quantities._ _Values._
British Possessions: _Tons._ _Tons._ £ £
Gambia 445 6,518
GoldCoast 14,629 205,365
Nigeria 184,624 2,797,411
Sierra Leone 50,751 793,178
-------- 250,449 --------- 3,802,472
French Possessions:
Dahomey 36,708 535,937
Gaboon 354 4,671
Guinea 5,054 41,079
Ivory Coast 6,692 70,710
Senegal 1,736 28,221
------ 50,544 ------ 680,618
Belgian Congo -- -- 110,835
German Possessions:
Kamerun 15,742 220,300
Togoland 11,456 168,978
------- 27,198 ------- 389,278
------- ----------
Totals 328,191 £4,983,203
This article also gives the average value of the kernels, which in
Hamburg ranges from £18 2s. to £19 2s. per ton (June, 1914); the value
in Liverpool was £17 17s. 6d. to £18 18s. 9d. per ton in July last, and
in September was £16 7s. 6d. to £17 10s. per ton.
Palm kernel oil is used for the same purposes as cocoa-nut oil, viz.,
the manufacture of soap and candles and the preparation of various
edible fats, such as margarine, cooking fats, vegetable “butters,” and
chocolate fats. By suitable treatment it can be separated into a liquid
portion (olein) and a hard white fat (palm kernel stearin), and in this
way the consistence of the material can be varied for the preparation of
different edible products. These edible palm kernel oil products are
prepared on a very large scale in Germany and elsewhere, and are largely
imported into this country. With palm kernels at £17 to £18 per ton, the
value of palm kernel oil in the United Kingdom is from £36 5s. to £36
15s. per ton, with Ceylon cocoa-nut oil at £40 per ton.
It is added that British oil-seed crushers who undertook to work them
would find no difficulty in getting a market for the oil among
soap-makers and makers of edible fats. Although the article points out
that some difficulty might be experienced in finding a market quickly in
the United Kingdom for the palm kernel cake, because English farmers do
not readily take up feeding stuffs which are new to them, it will be
gathered from what has already been said that, thanks to the initiative
of Sir Owen Phillipps, this difficulty is likely to be overcome, and the
opportunity is a particularly good one now that other feeding stuffs
are becoming more expensive, as that is a point which will have great
influence. It is not a new feeding material, but all the evidence points
simply to the fact that it has only to become better known and available
on a large scale to result in mutual benefits to the farmer, the miller,
the manufacturer, and the West African colonies.
COTTON.
The cultivation of fibrous plants, which have made a highly satisfactory
start in Togoland and East Africa, are to be found in Cameroon only in
the preliminary stage. In the experimental garden, Sanseveria, the
Romelia-pita from Central America, manilla hemp, Musa textiles, as well
as the Uttari jute, have been planted.
Cotton should have a much greater future than the so-called fibrous
plant. It is cultivated at present to a great extent south of Lake Chad
by the natives, and the cultivation of cotton has been called
systematic, as only one to two year-old plants are harvested. In that
region the conditions are so favourable that a considerable development
of the cotton cultivation may be counted upon, as soon as more
favourable communication conditions are made. In the Benue Valley,
cotton has also been cultivated for several decades. The whole of the
forest and coastland are unfit for this cultivation, and it is somewhat
surprising to hear that on the uncultivated lands of the Mandara
Mountains, a very beautiful long fibrous cotton grows. At the
instigation of the Colonial Agricultural Committee, cotton cultivation
made a tremendous start in Togo, and in East Africa as well as in the
Cameroons.
The export of timber has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years.
While in 1909 timber to the value of only £8,500 was imported, this sum
in 1912 had risen to £35,000, and, with the extension of the railway
system, the revenue from this source can be increased almost
indefinitely.
EXPERIMENTAL AGRICULTURAL WORK.
Dr. Walter Busse, of the Imperial German Colonial Office, writing in the
“Bulletin of the Imperial Institute” on “The Organisation of
Experimental Work in Agriculture in the German Colonies,” tells us that
in Cameroon, as in other parts where land is being opened up for
agriculture, the conditions of settlement of the natives, the density of
the population, the general standard of civilisation, and the capacity
of the natives for any particular kind of activity, all play an
important role. “And in proportion as the people incline towards
agriculture, so attention must be paid to the inclinations and needs of
the separate races, and lastly to the extent, organisation and methods
of native agriculture.... The German Colonial Government,” the German
colonial official proceeds to explain, “has laid it down as a principle
that native agriculture in the tropical colonies should be allowed to
develop freely side by side with plantations under European control,
wherever this does not interfere with higher interests. Local conditions
will decide how far in each particular region this or that method of
organising agriculture is to be preferred. But wherever climate, soil
and condition of settlement do not admit of plantation culture, and a
native population capable of production is present, the Government will,
as a matter of course, encourage native agriculture as much as possible,
and by this means create an improved economic position.”
Unfortunately for the native, as Hanns Vischer points out in his article
on “Native Education in German Africa,” his national feeling, his own
industry and aptitude for work, was entirely ignored by the Government,
and “higher interests” frequently interfered to retard the development
of native enterprise, while the Teutonic professors proved too
determined, for the good of colonial agriculture, to transfer to it “the
long-approved system of German agriculture, which rests on a strong
scientific foundation, built on the results of exact investigation and
methods.” Germany started her experimental work as soon as she entered
upon the occupation of colonies, with the establishment of gardens for
raising imported economic plants, such as coffee, cocoa, rubber, &c., in
the interest of plantation culture, and for the advancement of gardening
and fruit production. When European planters commenced to take up
agriculture on their own account, it was found that the experimental
work of the botanical gardens was no longer adequate to the new
requirements. For this purpose, experimental work on a purely
agricultural basis, and an effort to effect an improvement of native
agriculture, became necessary. To meet these demands, institutes were
established, and agricultural staffs were organised, and the measures
taken in Togoland in 1900, for the introduction and extension of cotton
cultivation, became the standard for agricultural experimental work in
the other tropical African colonies of Cameroon and East Africa.
THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.
The Experimental Institute of Agriculture at Victoria remained as the
centre for the whole of the experimental work in Cameroon until the year
1911, when the Imperial Government created a Department of Agriculture
at Buea to deal with all questions relating to organisation, while the
Victoria Institution continued to undertake the technical and scientific
investigations. At first the agricultural work was mainly devoted to
assisting the planting industry in the Cameroon Mountains, but as the
colony became opened up, fresh problems presented themselves. The
reckless exploitation of the _Funtumia elastica_ and Landolphia vines in
the rubber forests led to the establishment of a special rubber
inspectorate, and various arrangements were made for the development of
all branches of native cultivation. Special small experimental gardens
were created in the larger administrative stations of the interior and
placed under the management of a European farmer or gardener, to deal
with the cultivation by natives of products suitable for export. Later,
a cocoa inspectorate was established to organise native cocoa
cultivation in districts in which European cocoa plantations did not and
were not likely to exist, and an experimental station was founded in the
Jaunde district to encourage the cultivation of such crops as
ground-nuts, plantain and manioc, with a view to export. At Kuti and
Pittoa two agricultural experimental stations were established,
primarily for the cultivation of cotton, but other branches of
agriculture, including stock-raising, were embraced in the programme of
work at these stations. In 1913 the agricultural staff consisted of
fourteen first-grade, seven second-grade and twenty-eight third-grade
officers.
The Institute at Victoria comprised a botanic garden and botanical and
chemical laboratories, and the work carried on there included the
raising of tropical economic plants, experiments in plantation culture
and manuring, &c. Since 1910 young natives were trained as plantation
managers in the agricultural school attached to the institute. At the
cattle-breeding stations at Buea, Dschang and Djuttitsa (in the Dschang
district), and Jaunde, the breeding of Allgau bulls and cross-breeding
experiments with Allgau bulls and the indigenous humped cows were
carried on with the object of obtaining draught cattle for the several
districts and supplying meat and dairy produce to the Europeans. At the
Dschang School of Agriculture, young natives were instructed in the use
of the plough and in other rational methods of agriculture. At the Kuti
station, in the Bamum district, and the Pittao station, in the Adamana
district, the advancement of cotton cultivation is the primary study,
but the programmes of work also include comparative cultivation
experiments with indigenous cereals, pulses, root-crops, and fodder
plants, the use of the plough, manuring and rotation experiments,
cattle-breeding and cattle-keeping, and the training of native
travelling instructors.
The Rubber Inspectorate established stations for rubber cultivation at
Sangmalima (Ebolowa district), Akonolinga (Jaunde district), Dume (Dume
district), and Djahposten (Lomie district), and the work comprised the
distribution of Funtumia and Hevea plants to the natives, the
superintendence of new plantations, the regeneration of the stocks of
wild rubber which had become exhausted by careless exploitation, and the
instruction of the natives in the tapping of rubber trees and the
preparation and preservation of the rubber.
In order to deal adequately with the agricultural questions which arose
locally in the various districts, most of the administrative stations
possessed--apart from the established experimental gardens--agricultural
officers whose duty it was to superintend local experimental fields and
gardens. Such officers were employed, among other places, at Duala,
Edea, Bara, Yoko, and Bamenda, the chief aim of the experimental gardens
at these places being to develop the cultivation of export products,
while experiments with foreign economic plants, yielding produce
suitable for export, were also conducted.
MINERAL RESOURCES.
The mining industry has not yet penetrated into the Cameroons, and the
mineral deposits of the country are commercially improved. Cretaceous
and Tertiary rocks occur in the coastal area and extend northward to the
Nigerian border. Gneisses and schists of pre-Cambrian age, with
intrusive granites, extend over wide areas in the hinterland, and
volcanic rocks of supposed Tertiary age are very abundant. Pegmatites
and quartz veins are associated with granite intrusions in the
pre-Cambrian rocks. These carry tourmaline in the region north of Duala,
as in the Dschang district. Quartz veins with small amounts of pyrite
and arsenopyrite also occur.
Tinstone, which occurs in pegmatite veins in Nigeria, may be expected to
be encountered in the Cameroons, but although prospecting has been
carried on in various parts of the region bordering on Nigeria, in the
hope of finding tinstone and wolframite, no results have been obtained.
The only trace of gold yet discovered was an occurrence of spangles of
gold of theoretical interest only, which was found in a dyke rock (a
bostoorite) on the eastern boundary of the Ossidinge district.
Promising finds of mica have been made in the pegmatites of the
Ossidinge and Kentu districts, and galena also occurs in the cretaceous
sandstone in the Ossidinge district; but hitherto no argentiferous
lead-zinc ores comparable with those of Nigeria have been located.
Iron ores, some of which are manganiferous, are abundant in the country.
Many of these are of the lateritic type, and furnish material for native
smelting, as in other parts of Western Africa. In some localities, iron
ore has been formed by the decomposition of basalt. Masses of red and
brown ores of this type are found on hill-slopes in the neighbourhood
of Bali and Bamenda. A sample of this ore was found to contain 42·25 per
cent. of metallic iron, 0·35 of manganese, 0·17 of phosphorus, and 12·26
of silica. Richer ores of the magnetic type are found among the
pro-Cambrian gneisses.
Limestones are scarce and of unserviceable quality, but clays and loams,
suitable for brick-making, are abundant. Indications of the presence of
petroleum in the neighbourhood of Duala were falsified by borings.
Asphal is said to occur at Ossidinge and Mamfe on the Cross River. A
thin layer of coal yielding 48·3 per cent. of ash has been located at
Mamfe. Salt springs exist in the Ossidinge district, and the yield of as
much as from 5 to 8 per cent. of sodium-chloride from samples of brine,
is believed to indicate that salt beds may be found beneath the surface
in this district.
NATIVE EDUCATION.
In order to ascertain the work done by Europeans, the Government and the
Missionary Societies in schools for the natives of their various African
possessions, the German Colonial Institute in 1911 sent out to the
colonies over 2,000 printed _questionnaires_, with a request to the
authorities to return answers according to the state of the schools on
June 1st in that year. From the information filled in and returned, Herr
Missions-Inspector Schlunk, of Hamburg, was able to publish a voluminous
report on the subject, and the state of affairs thus revealed is
illustrative of the best and worst features of the Teutonic colonising
system. The facts in themselves concerning the educational work
accomplished in the way of providing the natives with schools and
teachers are remarkable.
In Cameroon the first educational work among the natives was begun by
the London Baptist Mission in 1845, and in 1885, the year in which the
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States of America entered the field, the London Baptists resigned their
organisation to the Missions Gesellschaft, of Basel. Two years later the
first Government School was opened in Duala, and in the following four
years the Apostolic Vicariat Kamerun, of Limburg on the Lahn, and the
German Baptists, of Steglitz, established schools in the colony. In
Cameroon, as in Togo, the Government were behind the missions in the
number of schools and scholars, having, in 1911, only eight elementary
schools, as against the nine of the American Presbyterians, thirty-eight
of the German Baptists, eighty-six of the Roman Catholic, and 275 of the
Basel Mission. Altogether there were in the colony 499 elementary
schools, with forty-two European and 611 native teachers, and 32,056
pupils; twenty-one higher schools, with thirty-three European and thirty
native teachers, and 1,802 pupils; eleven industrial schools, with
twenty-two European and five native teachers, and 259 pupils; or a total
of 531 schools, with ninety-seven European and 646 native teachers, and
34,117 pupils. Of the teachers 3·3 per cent. and of the pupils 8·1 per
cent. were females.
THE SCHOOL COURSE.
In both Togo and Cameroon, the course of the elementary schools began
with an infant class and lasted four or five years, the objects of the
schools in both colonies having been to provide Christian instruction to
natives and to train pupils for the higher schools with a view to their
entering the service of Europeans. Instruction in German began in the
first year, and in the third year pupils were required to read and write
German fluently in both characters. The curriculum for the last year
included the history of the German Empire since the Franco-German War of
1870-71, the history of the German Emperors since January 18th, 1871,
the Geography of Germany, and the singing of German patriotic songs.
In the higher schools, the object of the teachers was to “impart such
knowledge as is required in the service of Europeans,” and all
instruction was given in the German language. The schools for practical
work trained girls for domestic work, laundry work and farming, while
boys received instruction in carpentering, cabinet-making, smiths’ work,
boot-making and tailoring, printing and book-binding. At the completion
of their course, all pupils were obliged to remain in the service of the
Government for two or more years. In both Togoland and Cameroon, the
Government had a school of agriculture, where pupils were instructed in
farming, especially cotton-growing and the use of the plough, and at
some of the mission schools in the latter colony the pupils were trained
in brick-making and cocoa-planting, and the work connected with
water-supply and bridge-making.