1 66 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



medicinal plants of the French Sudan, and G. IvanofF (1936) has 

 given an account of those used by the inhabitants of the Ivory 

 Coast. For the same territory R. Porteres (1935) has described 

 plants from which poisons are obtained for hunting, fishing, war- 

 fare and criminal purposes. For the Belgian Congo de Wildeman 

 (1935) has described all plants known to be used as medicinal 

 drugs, much of the information being obtained by the staff of the 

 FOREAMI working in the Congo {see Chapter XV) . For Nigeria, 

 the Gold Coast, and neighbouring territories, Dalziel's volume 

 entitled The Useful Plants of West Tropical Africa (1937) is important 

 since special attention is given to the medicinal plants. As very 

 few derivatives from African plants are mentioned in the British 

 Pharmacopoeia, there would seem to be scope for research of an 

 interesting nature. 



PASTURE RESEARCH 



A large part of the African continent is at present of value to 

 man primarily for raising stock, and is likely to remain so. More- 

 over, if the tendency to soil exhaustion already noticeable in some 

 regions becomes further exaggerated, certain areas which are now 

 regularly cultivated may have to be laid down to pasture in order 

 to keep a permanent protective cover of vegetation. Hence the 

 improvement of pastures, both natural and artificial, has become 

 important. This work can be divided into the study of the con- 

 stituent species of pastures, whether grasses, clovers, or other kinds 

 of plant; the suitability of different kinds to the various environ- 

 ments; the nutritional value of different kinds; and the breeding 

 of pure strains of grasses and legumes suitable to special conditions. 

 These branches of pasture research are still mainly in the experi- 

 mental stage, but in recent years the problems of soil erosion, 

 nutrition of domestic animals, and drought, have stimulated govern- 

 ments to employ specialists in several areas. In spite of the contri- 

 bution that botanical science can make, it must be remembered 

 that the proper management of natural and artificial pastures is 

 dependent on adequate facilities for watering stock, and hence atten- 

 tion must be directed again to the importance of investigations on 

 water-supplies, a subject discussed in Chapter III. 



