26 COCONUTS, KERNELS, AND CACAO. 



yielding less oil and more kernels e.g., in Sierra Leone 

 others have thin-shelled kernels and thicker pericarps. 

 The oil palm does not thrive in heavy forest, but in 

 open valleys with low undergrowth. The seeds or nuts, 

 which are large and heavy, are distributed by the agency 

 of birds and mammals. 



The full-grown oil palm attains a height of about 

 60 feet, and consists of a stem covered throughout its 

 length with the bases of dead leaves, and bearing at 

 the apex a crown of large, pinnate leaves, each of 

 which may be 15 feet long, with leaflets 2 feet or 3 feet 

 long. 



The tree is very slow growing, reaching a height of 

 6 inches to 9 inches in three years, 12 inches to 18 inches 

 in four or five years, 8 feet in ten years, 13 feet to 14 feet 

 in fifteen years, and attaining its full height of 60 feet 

 in about 120 years. 



The fruit is borne in bunches termed " heads/' " hands/' 

 or " cones," which are small and numerous when the 

 tree first begins to bear, from the fourth to the eighth 

 year, and larger but leas numerous as the tree becomes 

 older. The oil palm requires little cultivation ; where- 

 ever natives settle in previously uncultivated spots, 

 they plant oil palms, and, as they rarely cut these down 

 when subsequently clearing their fallow ground, the 

 number of such trees increases from year to year. 



Where, however, the oil palm has received the atten- 

 tion of the plantation, as in French Guinea (and in the 

 Krobo district of the Gold Coast before the cocoa boom 

 set in), the palm groves are in a more flourishing con- 

 dition, and have yielded better results. The cocoa trees 

 in the Krobo district were first planted as catch-crops 



