OIL PALM DO 



is cool, the oil is skimmed from the surface of the water 

 which has been added for the boiling. This oil is appar- 

 ently only used locally. 



The existing native social system, under which the 

 male head of a family receives almost exclusive con- 

 sideration, is opposed to native co-operation in any 

 mechanical process, whereby a relief from labour of his 

 numerous dependants wives, children, and aged or in- 

 firm relatives would be incurred at the expense of his 

 enhanced personal labour ; he being the carrier and dis- 

 poser of the produce at the market. By the conveyance 

 and sale of nuts instead of kernels, a much smaller re- 

 turn in value would be obtained for the same weight of 

 material, i.e. a similar amount of personal energy. The 

 dependants, incapable of assisting in transporting, would 

 remain idle, unless some similar work could be found 

 for them. Up to a short distance from the delivery 

 point (which would determine itself) the nuts instead 

 of the kernels would be brought in for sale, and, limited 

 by the capabilities of the available palm-tree climbers, 

 the family dependants would be able to prepare larger 

 quantities of pericarp oil ; but the increased accumulation 

 of kernels would further decrease the radius from the 

 selling centre at which the carriers would be able to 

 work. 



If the entire fruit were to be bought up for mechanical 

 extraction of pericarp oil as well as kernels, the carrying 

 labour would be still further enhanced, and the work of 

 the oil-manufacturing communities would resolve itself 

 into three operations viz. climbing trees, chopping out 

 fruit, and transporting which would mean the exclusion 

 from work of all but the strong adults, or the reduction 

 of workers by 30 to 50 per cent, perhaps. The number 

 of skilled palm-tree climbers is said to be decreasing in 

 many districts, and, owing to the sparsity of the popula- 

 tion in some localities, a very large proportion of the 

 annual yield of fruit remains unharvested. 



The investigation of the several varieties of the oil palm 

 of the country is in progress at the Imperial Institute, 

 and the characters of the most important are now well 

 known, and may be compared here with the varieties 

 from the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Northern 

 Nigeria. The typical form, which, although subject to 



