185 
Ann. Sc. Nat. sér. 3 xix., p. 270) derived from the a of 
d sent from Gambia. fons this the trade takes its origin. 
French settlements benefited first, and Gambia, ke they 
possessed one, as well as Senegal sent increasing quantities to 
Marseilles year by year. Other parts of Africa commenced to 
export nuts, notably Algeria, Sierra Leone, and Angola. Pondi- 
cherry, too, began to send shipments, oat the trade thence received 
a great stimulus by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. 
Some idea of the growth of the trade may be obtained from 
the = that ten or twelve years after the first importation 
the output of Marseilles had reached seventy million kilogrammes 
of oil (1,377,482 ¢ wt.). Barcelona, meal wiich, as al ready 
1787, entered into competition with Mars tie Spain proved not 
unsuited to the crop, and thence comes the record that 700 pods 
have been ea from a single root ; but the output of oil from 
Spain is not great. 
Another atteripl at Sear ape in France took place in 1839 
and 1840, when a M. Chaise, who had been in Senegal, grew near 
Dax some five "petads “(24 acres), with results beyond ee 
expectation. Still, as Naudin reports (Naudin and Mue 
Manuel de l Acclimateur, 1887, p. 139), the cost of oeoditeation 
was too great, and despite M. Chaise’s big crop no further 
as to bent the plant in France have occurred. From 
Loso n Hungary a more recent successful attempt is reported 
(Fuad, Jahrdaberiohe, 1878, ii., p. 478) but it is not clear that profit 
can be derived. 
trade in ground-nuts thus remains one by which the 
tropics feed the mills of Europe. 
enoa, Bordeaux, Nantes, Dunkirk, London, Rotterdam, 
Hambur. urg, and the Baltic ports have entered into competition with 
Marseilles, and the Mozambique coast of Africa has commenced 
to export in large quantity. 
n this process of aaTiea "HG! lotee though France still remains 
facile princeps, Marseilles no longer holds the same large share 
in the commerce which fell to that Sort thirty years ago. Al 
100 million kilogrammes of Arachis were imported into France 
in 1898, chiefly in the pods, but partly decorticated, to a value of 
over £836,000, and representing 76,900,984 kilogrammes of 
ke me ye 
a 
amount, represented as kernels, of 27,098,1 ilogrammes 
proportion of the trade which fell to Marseilles was then a trifle 
more than one-third of the total of Fra 
figures upon which the above prencenn is based w 
kindly supplied to Kew by the Statistical Department of the 
Bo of Trade. m figures from the same source the 
following table of recent imports to France has been calculated :— 
Average. In the shell. Decorticated. Total as kernels, 
1892-4 | 75,123,313 105,816,151 163,661,102 
1895-7 57, 516,807  -* 46,791,922 88,513,197 
1898 93, 684, "247 4,764,114 76,900,91 
