PALM OIL AND KERNELS. 29 



by being stacked in heaps and covered by leaves for 

 some days more. The release of the fruit from its fibrous 

 case is thereby easier. In consequence of the fermenta- 

 tion, the glycerine (now worth 200 per ton), of which 

 the palm oil, when produced from fresh fruit, contains 

 as much as 10 per cent., is reduced to 5 or even a lower 

 percentage, making, as may be imagined, a very serious 

 difference in its market value. 



The Germans were keen on introducing European 

 methods of improvement. At the Agu plantation in 

 Togoland, for example, the process employed there 

 extracted the best palm oil obtainable, containing only 

 5 to 6 per cent, of fatty acid. And only as late as July 

 4th, 1914, Direktor Hupfield, of Togoland, told the 

 Third International Congress of Tropical Agriculture 

 that increase in exportation might be attained by (1) 

 an extension of the districts capable of exporting by 

 improvements in the means of transport ; (2) a more 

 intensive utilisation of the existing palms through better 

 methods of cultivation ; (3) a better utilisation of the 

 crops obtained through improved methods of prepara- 

 tion ; (4) an increase in the existing number of palms 

 by increased activity of the present producers or the 

 introduction of fresh producers ; and (5) methods of 

 preparing the crop by machinery which have been 

 elaborated within the last decade. 



Both British and French are now taking up the matter 

 more seriously, and several British firms, notably Lever 

 Bros, and the Co-operative Wholesale Society, have taken 

 up large concessions under European management . 



Several important organised efforts have now been 

 made to supplant the wasteful native method for re- 



