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In cultivation the Adamawa Fulani appears to be exceedingly 
indolent. Guinea corn is the staple cereal as compared with the 
millet of Bornu. 
A serious epidemic affected this crop on the Gongola and Upper 
Benue in 1904, and was probably due to the same aphis as that 
found in the Sudan. One may not infrequently find certain fields 
where the leaves of guinea corn are covered with aphides and the 
characteristic sticky deposit, but this season I have also always 
found several varieties of their natural enemies, the lady birds, on 
the same plants. The sorghum bug (Zygaeus militaris, Fabr.) is 
also not uncommon, but is found on many other plants, particularly 
Calotropis procera (“tumfafia,” Fufulde, “bamambeh”). Industrious 
Hausa or Fulani from other provinces facetiously remark that 
“rogo ” or Cassava (Fufulde, “ Mbai”) is the chief crop of Adamawa 
because it is easy to grow, and there is some truth in the gibe. 
Wheat is rarely seen, but a fair amount of maize and rice is grown, 
although the latter grass does not grow wild in the South as in 
ornu and Katagum, where it is sometimes gathered by the simple 
method of sweeping a calabash over the ripening grain. It cannot 
be denied that the cultivation of rice is greatly neglected in this 
province, where vast meadows remain moist throughout the year, 
and, at a low estimate, over half of its area is actually under water 
for several weeks between July and September. The extensive 
marsh between the Benue and the long ridge on which Yola town - 
is situated, some two miles in width and many miles in length, is 
alone capable of supplying the province with this grain, a fact 
which was pointed out to the late Emir and his Chiefs by a party 
. of Turkish exiles last year. From the deck of a river steamer, 
when the Benue is in flood, one cannot fail to see extending from 
the edge of the natural channel almost endless areas of grassy 
swamps, little cumbered by trees, and limited only by the range of 
hills some 10 to 15 miles distant, areas which would appear to offer 
illimitable possibilities for the growth of this cereal, which composes 
one-ha e imports of tropical Africa. Rice, however, is regarde 
by the Fulani as an unsatisfying food, and they use the alluvial 
hollows after subsidence of the waters for planting a white grain 
in compact racemes, which is reaped about the end of January. 
An inferior variety of Sorghum, called “jigari,” is the first article 
planted immediately on the definite advent of the rains, and this 
early maturing crop is unfortunately used, by Pagans at least, 
chiefly for the preparation of the intoxicating “ peto,” and, as a rule, 
only resorted to for food in the case of failure of the later crop of 
proper guinea-corn. 
