221 



It is quite possible that in West Africa the natives, being ex- 

 pert climbers, give a greater output of work ; yet Dudgeon tells 

 us in " Agricultural and Forest Products of British West Africa '* 

 that it takes 8 minutes for a native to chop off a bunch. 



Tlie leaves are often, and should alwaj's be, cut long before 

 the harvest, so as to favour the expansion of the bunch by reducing' 

 the compression exerted by the leaves. But what is more signi- 

 ficant is " that the number of skilled palm-tree climbers is said to 

 be decreasing in many districts and a very large proportion of the 

 annual yield of fruit remains unharvested " (page 93). This does 

 not say much for the attractions of Elaeis climbing as a profession. 



The bunch which the writer is dealing with in this paper 

 comes, as already stated, from a young tree and does not therefore, 

 give quite a fair idea of the crop obtainable from the Elaeis palm, 

 for as in the case of Coconut the full-bearing capacity of the tree 

 is only reached when it has attained complete maturity. In his 

 monograph, " The Oil Palm and its Varieties " J. H. J. Farquhar 

 says, page 20 : 



" On the average, 5 bunches of fruit are produced per palm 

 per annum ; but it is common to find trees yielding many more. 

 The average weight of a bunch is 31 lbs. made up of fruits 20 lb. 

 and stalks, bracts, and calyx leaves which are worthless 11 lbs. The 

 average number of fruit in a bunch is 1600 of which 600 or 38% 

 are fully developed, 200 or 12% are imperfectly developed, and 

 800 or 50%; are not developed." 



The 20 lbs. of the fruit is made up as under (page 23) 



the palm-oil extracted bv native methods weighs 1.5. lbs.] 



the kernels .. " .. .. "..4.0 lbs. [-20 lbs. 



the refuse, fibre and shells . . . . . . 14.5 Ibs.j 



5% of the weight of a whole bunch of palm-fruit may be con- 

 sidered oil, and at 5 bunches per tree this would mean 7i lbs. of 

 palm-oil .yearly per tree. 



One imperial gallon of cold palm-oil weighs 8^ lbs., accurately. 

 The writer's own findings are : 



One bunch ("maiden crop") weighs .. ..18 lbs. 



The bunch contained 206 fresh fruit perfectly developed 



weighing . . . . . . . . . . 7 lbs. 



25 fruits, whole, after the calyx leaves and 



the peduncles had been cut off weighed 13.50 ozs. 



25 pericarps . . . . . . . . 5.75 ozs. ] -^g ^^ ^^^ 



25 fruits divested of their pericarps . . 7.75 ozs. ^ ' *' 



25 pericarps gave of pericarp-oil (Palm-oil) 1.625 ozs. 



We need not attach any importance to the differences of 

 weights of the bunches, as shown between the above two sets of 

 figures : the bunch cut down in this case, being a " maiden " crop 

 would be expected to weigh less than one cut from a mature tree : 

 but when we come to compare the weights of the fruits and the 



