OIL PALM AND PALM KERNEL INDUSTRY 467 



a matter of taste as to which is the better of the two. Apparently 

 it depends on what commodity the native is dealing in, kernels or oil, 

 as to whether it pays better to get plenty of oil, and obtain the kernels 

 more easily from the soft-shelled Oil Palm, or an average amount of 

 oil and larger kernels obtained with more difHculty from the ordinary 

 Oil Palm. On the whole, the Lisombe Palm does not seem to yield 

 on an average more pericarp oil than the ordinary Benin or Yoruba 

 Oil Palm growing in a farm in the usual moist-zone climate. Certainly 

 the kernel of the Lisombe Palm is much smaller than the ordinary 

 Oil Palm. A further point to be considered, too, is that the bunch 

 of Lisombe Oil Palm fruit is smaller on the average than the bunch 

 of the ordinary Oil Palm. 



However, it may be noted that the natives of the southern part 

 of the Ogoja district, especially the Ndeh and Befun people, plant a 

 species of soft-shelled palm near the villages. Of course, in this 

 locality the Oil Palm is not found in very large quantities, and the 

 seeds for these groves were obtained from a good distance away, 

 probably near the Cross River. 



3. The Growing of the Oil Palm — Distribution of Seed by 

 Farmers, Parrots, Monkeys. — In the forest country a clearing is 

 made some distance away from the village by the native to make a 

 new farm. In clearing and cutting down the forest, few or no Oil 

 Palms are met with, so that the farmer's wife brings palm fruit or 

 oil to the new farm, in order that they may have palm oil to 

 eat. Having made the oil, the nuts are put out in the open to 

 dry, with the intention of their being cracked later on. However, 

 they lie about some months, and rodents of various kinds, such as 

 rats and the hyrax (a squirrel-like animal), carry some of these away 

 into the farm. Some farmers, too, pick up a few and scatter them over 

 the farm. In the course of a year or two Oil Palm seedlings appear, 

 where they are left amongst the other vegetation when the farm is 

 abandoned. In this way, instead of the original thick forest 

 there is a more or less dense grove of young Oil Palms. In other 

 places the parrots may bring nuts from the neighbouring forests or 

 other old farms, and these, falling in the clearing, also help to make 

 a palm forest. 



The native also, after he has picked the bunches of fruit, puts them 

 down in some convenient place on the roadside. Some of the nuts 

 become scattered, which subsequently sprout and form additional 

 groves of palms, especially where the larger trees near the roadside 

 fall, or are cut down, thus giving more light to the young 

 seedlings. 



Again, when the bunch of fruit is ripe on the tree, it is not often 

 immediately cut off, and many of the ripe nuts thus fall to the ground. 

 These subsequently grow, forming almost thickets of Oil Palms, instead 



