FARM PRODUCE 331 



the local animal diseases, and there should be a 

 future for pig-breeding in this colony. 



Foivls of a small, skinny local breed, and 

 Muscovy ducks are to be seen in most villages. 

 They are kept for food, as African natives practi- 

 cally never cat eggs. ~ 



FARM PRODUCE. Near the village are fields 

 of mandioc, ground-nuts, sweet potatoes, maize, 

 millet, and beans, and in the hot northern coastal 

 lands, rice and sugar-cane. Each family cultivates 

 a few acres, the ground being lirst cleared by 

 burning and then manured with the ashes of the 

 burnt trees and grass. The tilling and hoeing 

 is very superficially done with a heart-shaped 

 mattock on. a V-shaped handle, and after two or 

 three sowings the land is considered exhausted, 

 and abandoned for a new plot. 



In order to get a continuity of crops, uplands 

 are chosen for cultivation just before the rainy 

 weather, and valleys near streams during the dry 

 season ; while, to save labour and still obtain a 

 variety of produce, two kinds of crops arc often 

 mixed, one being sown in the furrows, the 

 other in the ridges or mounds between them. 

 Thus maize and beans are usually sown together, 

 and mandioc with sweet potatoes or ground- 

 nuts. 



Except mealies, few of the above plants are 

 cultivated by the European settlers, who appear 

 unfortunately to favour wheat, butter beans, 

 peas, flax, and hemp, to the exclusion of the hardier, 

 easily-raised, indigenous produce. The economic 

 plants are mentioned in the order in which I met 



