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CHAPTER XI 

 OIL-SEEDS AND OILS 



An enormous and ever-increasing quantity of oil-seeds and 

 oils are imported into this country for the manufacture of 

 margarine (and various nut-butters), soap, candles, lubricants, 

 and many other substances. The following are some of the 

 most important oil-yielding plants : 



THE AFRICAN OIL PALM. They have three kinds of trees, 

 as the Palme-trees, whereof some are females and beare Grapes 

 as bigge as Plummes of an Orange colour, at the one end being 

 somewhat blackish : those Grapes they peele to the stones, 

 and thereof they make Oile, which they call Palme-Oile, 

 which is verie delicate and good, which they use to dresse their 

 meate withall, and make good sauce for their fish, the thickest 

 of this Oile they use to anoint their bodies withall, to make 

 them cleane, and the women use it to frizell their haire, the 

 veines are as great as acornes, and as hard as a stone, at the 

 end thereof having three round holes, they beat them in pieces 

 and within find certain Nuts, like little earthen pellets, much 

 like hazell-nuts, but when you eat them, they taste of wood 

 and are verie drie.' l 



The tree from which these ' Grapes ' are obtained is the 

 African Oil Palm. Its botanical name is Elaeis Guineenis, 

 i. e. Guinea Olive-tree. When full grown it attains a height 

 of sixty feet ; and, like all palms, its trunk is marked with 

 the scars of fallen leaves, but, in the days of its youth, it -is 

 a little forest in itself, for the bases of the dead leaves do not 

 fall off, they only bend back, and the spaces between them and 

 the trunk form receptacles for rain-water, and all sorts of bits 

 of decaying vegetation, which make a fertile soil for any chance 

 seeds or roots that may get carried thither. These gradually 

 sprout and grow, and soon all up the trunk are to be seen 

 ferns, and creepers, and plants of all sorts. When the tree 



1 ' A description and historicall declaration of the golden Kingdome of 

 Guinea . . . written by one that hath oftentimes beene there. A.D. 1600.' 

 (Purchas His Pilgrimes.) 



