290 COMMERCIAL PROSPECTS 



than l2 10s. a ton. On the other hand, I am not certain whether 

 Uganda wouUl produce the local labour for tlie coffee plantations as cheap 

 as that which would be obtained in ]^)ritish Central Africa. Perhaps on 

 the whole the advantages of the two I'rotectorates for coffee-i)lanting are 

 about e(jual. 



Regarding the soil of rgantla ])roiH'r and the adjoining Districts of 

 Busoga and Toro, Mr. Alexander Whvte says : " (fenerally speaking, this 

 soil is a reddish loam on a subsoil of rich red or chocolate clay, sometimes 

 of a great depth. At times patches of jwor, gravelly soil crop up, more 

 esjjecially on the hilltops. These are formed of disintegrated ironstone 

 or igneous rock, and do not retain the moisture. The country is wonder- 

 fully free from siu'face stones anil lK)ulders. . . . The soil of the swamps 

 and marshes is a black humus, formetl by the decay of rank vegetation. One 

 would naturally expect to find a deep deposit of this, mixed with soil washed 

 down from the surrounding hills; on the contrary, I have been surprised to 

 find this black deposit often very shallow and almost invariably overlaying a 

 subsoil of kaolin clay. . . . The (pie>tion generallv })Ut is, What will not 

 grow and flourish in I'ganda? The furze and the broom grow so wt-U that 

 we are making hedges of them. Tomatoes grow quite wild. One plant was 

 left by the boys when weeding my compound. It flourished so amazingly 

 that I determined to keep tally of the fruits picked from it. The yield in 

 two months has been 3, ()()()! It still goes on bearing clusters of lovely fruits, 

 and covers a space of twenty feet stjuare." 



I give here a photogra[)h of a sunflower in the I'otanical (iardens at 

 Entebbe which grew up in a few weeks, and produced more than 200 

 blossoms, all of them yielding seed full of excellent oil. 



Oats thrive well on lofty regions like the Xandi Plateau. U[) to the 

 present time wheat in Uganda has not been a great success. Inasmuch, 

 however, as it has proved a success in German East Africa to the south of 

 the lake, our comparative failure probably means that we did not select 

 the right kind of wheat for the very varying altitudes of the I'ganda 

 Protectorate. As to Indian corn, sorghum, millet, eleusine, and other 

 grains native to Africa or India, they flourish exceedingly, and are at any 

 rate excellent and sustaining food for the natives. 



The sesamum and ground-nut grow in many districts, and could be 

 converted locally into an oil of considerable commercial value. Tlie 

 fibre of the raphia palm, of three or four species of Hibiscus, and of the 

 Sanseviera might be worth exporting. The Baganda make excellent 

 ropes out of locally produced fibre. Tobacco grows almost everywhere in 

 Uganda, but wiiether it could possibly compete with the tobaccos of the 

 West Indies, India, and Borneo is doubtful. But it forms a very notable 

 object of sale and barter amongst the natives, being eagerly purchased from 



