268 



pruning of the leaves below the l)unches has been attended to, the 

 bunches will be easily accessible without climbing in most cases. 

 But meanwhile two problems will liave to be solved : 



1. The transfwrtation of the bunches to the mill, and. vmless 

 a clear grasp of the difficulties? of the case has l>een taken at the 

 inception of the estate, aiid its distribution planned accordinglv, 

 the labour involved will bear heavily on the concern. 



2. The treatment of the fruit for extraction of the oil at the 

 mill. 



Toucliing the subject of oil-extracting machinery, the writer 

 has already declared himself incompetent to pass an opinion on 

 the relative merits of the appliance>s in use for treating the fruits 

 of Elae'is and what is written below must l>e taken only as the result 

 of reflexions of a layman face to face with the elemental side of 

 the problem as it presented itself in his own homely methods of 

 extraction as previously described (Bulletin April 12th). 



At the end of the latter Bulletin the writer expressed the view 

 that the future of Elae'is is bound u,p with, among other conditions : 



"A judicious use of native methods of " depericarpiug " 

 blended " with mechanical devices of well-authenticated efficiency." 



An article of The Tropical A^griculturist of March 1920, 

 affords an opportunity of amplifying that statement. The article 

 is an extract of the Bulletin of the Imperial Institute, Vol. XVII, 

 No. 2, which, itself, is a reproduction of a report of Mr. A. Bories, 

 Inspector of Agriculture, French Equatorial Africa, published in 

 the "Bulletin des Maiieres Grasses," Xo. 2, 1919. The gist of the 

 report is given telow, but as in the conversion of French weights 

 'into English, certain minor errors hav(^ crept into the account. 

 Mr. Bories* figures are here reintroduced. 



'On a "palmery" at Louna (Gabon) consisting of 30,000 

 palms which had been looked after and kept clean during a previous 

 period of three years, 4 men and 4 women were told off to gather 

 a crop of Elae'is and bring it to its ultimate result, viz : clean oil. 



The first day was spent in collecting and transporting the 

 bunehes to the liouse. The result was 120 bunches weighing each 

 about 10 kilos = 1200 kilos = 2640 lbs. equivalent to 170(1 pounds of 

 fruit. The bunches being of full ripeness the picking of the fruit 

 out of the bunches was easily performed in the course of tlie after- 

 noon. 



The second day was spent in making the oil, an operation 

 which took altogether about five hours, consisting in 1st cooking 

 the fruit, 1 hour 30 minutes: 2nd pounding, 30 minutes; 3rd 

 (iepulping, sorting out the stones and re-iieating the pul[), 1 hour 

 30 minutes : 4th extraction of the oil, 1 hour. 



Cooking the fruit was done successively in three iron }>an6, each 

 of a capacity of 22 gallons, each receiving about 190 pounds of 

 fruit, with about 4 gallons of water. The whole was covered with 

 banana leaves. When, After ]| hours cooking over a brisk fire 

 the fruits were sufficiently softened, they were shovelled into a 

 mortar. 



