350 THE GROUND-NUT AND ITS OIL. 



"We have been favoured with the subjoined statement regarding the 

 past years' local crop, prepared by a firm which is entirely devoted to 

 the manufacture of the nuts on a large scale, and which we believe has 

 recently received complete and extensive machinery for carrying on 

 operations. 



" The ground-nut harvest is just over, and this year's crop has 

 proved an exceedingly fine one, the yield most abundant, and the nuts 

 themselves heavy and well developed. 



" In the absence of actual tabular reports, we are only able to make 

 the following return : — 2,200 muids ground nuts have been harvested ; 

 900 muids ground nuts left in the ground from want of sufficient hands 

 to pick them out ; total, 3,100. This amounts, in fact, to a loss on the 

 whole crop of nearly thirty per cent. The muid is 2| bushels. 



" The yield this season has been great, and is variously estimated by 

 different growers, and in different soils, at from forty to eighty muids 

 per acre ; fifty muids per acre has been considered the average yield of 

 the season. The whole of the present crop has been grown by 

 European colonists. In only three or four instances have natives 

 purchased seed, although we believe many kraals are growing small 

 patches of the ground-nut expressly for seed." 



Senegal and its dependencies, which exported, in 1840, but 1,210 

 kilogrammes of ground nuts, now produce more than 10,000,000 kilo- 

 grammes. Cay or and Casamance furnish the largest quantities ; but 

 some cargoes are also sent from Galam, which are more esteemed than 

 from the other localities, on account of the thickness of the husk or 

 shell and the superior yield of oil. It is one of the principal resources of 

 the country, and the production is annually more and more extended, 

 notwithstanding the impediments which the Moors throw in the way ot 

 its traffic, under the dread that their gums will be neglected. The 

 principal market for Senegal proper is the large village of Gandiole. 

 About Goree, the centre of supply is Rufisque, lower down Sedhiou 

 and Carabane in Casamance, and Albreda, on the Gambia. At the 

 Gaboon, where the population is thinly scattered, and little agricultural, 

 all that is produced is locally consumed. The mean price at Senegal 

 for ground nuts is 20 to 25 francs the 100 kilogrammes (8s. to 10s. 

 the cwt). 



The Governor of the Gambia, in a despatch under date May 1st, 1851, 

 stated the demand for ground-nuts had led to the cultivation of lar^e 

 tracts of land ; and if the trade were to extend every ten years as 

 rapidly as it had done since its commencement — viz., 43 tons exported in 

 1837, to 8,636 tons exported in 1847, — whole tracts of country at present 

 covered with jungle or traversed by rude and savage tribes would then 

 be cultivated and reclaimed, whilst all the blessings which spring 

 from agriculture, bringing with them peace and plenty, industry, 

 civilization, and improvement would necessarily follow. Although the 

 exports did nearly double again in the following ten years, this increased 



