494 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 
a special name for this type of forest ; amongst the Efiks it is called 
Ekai, the Yorubas term it Igbo, and the Benin people Egbo. Con- 
sidering the size of these last remnants of the real high forest, agri- 
culture cannot justly claim the right to clear and farm even this area 
when so much (estimated at 28,000 square miles), apart from the area. 
already mentioned, has been cleared during the last fourteen years. 
In the above estimate, areas even of 500 square miles for roadways 
and railways, 1,000 square miles for town, village and factory sites, 
and 2,500 square miles for inland waterways were allowed for when 
computing the whole area of forest land. 
At the present time in Nigeria, with the exception of certain 
specified trees, and less so in the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and the 
Gambia, there is nothing to hinder a native from cutting down any 
forest he pleases for making a temporary farm. In fact, the difference 
between farming as practised in civilized countries and in these tropical 
West African Colonies is that the former partakes of a permanent 
cultivation of the same land every year, whereas the latter is shifting 
cultivation of a different piece of land almost every year. At the 
most, the Yoruba returns to the land in five or seven years, and 
the native of Benin after ten or twelve years. 
Another point which bears on this question is really the compara- 
tively small amount of land which a native actually farms every year. 
For instance, an energetic Yoruba farmer will make 2,000 yam heaps 
a year, which, allowing for the distance of 6 feet between each heap, 
amounts to 1:6 acres per year. This also includes the help which he 
may receive from his family. 
Out of a total population of 8,000,000, at the most 2,000,000 are 
actually men who make farms. It follows, then, that some 2,560,000 
acres, or 4,000 square miles, are cleared and planted each year. Now, 
allowing sufficient land for the native to be able to return to the 
original piece cleared after seven years, the total amount of land 
necessary for the existing farming population would be 28,000 square 
miles, or rather more than a third of the total area of the country. 
Even after allowing 19,000 or 26,000 square miles of forest in the 
country, there would still remain nearly a third, or 25,000 square miles, 
for the future development of agriculture and the natural increase of 
the population. It should be especially noted that it is under a system 
of shifting cultivation that this 28,000 square miles is required. No 
doubt under permanent cultivation less would be necessary. Quite 
apart, however, from this consideration, owing to the greater heat, 
moisture and humidity in the Tropics generally, and in the Southern 
Provinces of Nigeria particularly, agricultural crops grow much more 
rapidly and are much more prolific than in the more temperate zones, 
even without manures. Yet in another way there is not such an 
enormous demand on the amount of land required per unit of popu- 
