92 COLONIAL REPORTS MISCELLANEOUS. 



(d) Adansonia digitata. The fibrous pulp is eaten by the 

 natives. It has an acid flavour. The seeds also are washed, 

 pounded up, and then steeped in water for ten days and the 

 infusion so obtained used by the natives of North- Western 

 Ashanti for flavouring their soups. 



(e) Tamarindus indica. The tamarind. Local in its distribu- 

 tion. Found near the larger rivers such as the Volta and the 

 Afram. 



(/) The Sierra Leone tamarind, Dialiuui guineense. Very 

 local. 



(g) Ficus platyphylla. 



(li) Anona senegalensis. The wild custard apple. Very 

 common. 



(i) Sarcocephalus esculentus. Very common. 



(j) Gardenia sp., probably G. temifolia. Common. 



(7c) The pericarp of the nut of the fan palm, Borassus ftabelli- 

 formis. Very common. 



Wood oil is furnished by the ' Balsam Copaiba ' tree, 

 Daniella thurifera, which is very abundant in the open country, 

 and Gums by Acacia Sieberiana, the dry zone 'mahogany (Kliaya 

 senegalensis}, and the chew-stick tree, Anogeissus leiocarpus. 

 These gums, however, appear to be of inferior quality. 



It is the custom to look upon the forest vegetation of the open 

 country as being practically worthless, but the list of useful 

 plants given above will, I hope, help to dispel this idea. No 

 doubt the dense evergreen forests of the moist belt are more 

 imposing and appeal more to the imagination than do the park- 

 like forests of the hinterland, but they are far more difficult to 

 deal with professionally. The proportion of useful species to 

 the rest is small, the natural regeneration is generally poor, and 

 the age gradations are invariably in a very unsatisfactory con- 

 dition ; whereas the converse with respect to all these points holds 

 good in the case of the open, deciduous forests just described. 

 Here the only difficulty to contend with is that of fire protection, 

 the cost of which, however, is likely to be heavy. 



Of course, where the preservation of the water-supply or other 

 climatic factors are of importance to tropical agriculture, such 

 as the cultivation of cocoa, cola, rubber, and other useful plants 

 demanding a hot moist climate or otherwise, it is imperative that 

 suitable forest areas shoiild be strictly conserved with a view to 

 maintaining the water-supply and preventing the spread into the 

 forest region of the grass country. This, together with the 

 creation of forest reserves for the constant supply of timber and 

 other forest produce derived from species that arc confrned to the 

 moist belt, necessarily shifts the centre of gravity of loresc 

 management to the heavy forest region, but this is no reason why 

 the park-like forests of the open country should be neglected ; 

 they will respond far more readily to professional treatment than 

 the dense evergreen forest and will be much more easy to exploit 

 with modern mechanical appliances. At the same time their 

 preservation will steadily improve the quality of the soil and 



