THE GROUND-NUT. 



401 



grown very generally in different parts of Africa, in India, the West 

 India Islands, and the United States. For the purposes of commerce, 

 it is principally raised on the West Coast of Africa, in different 

 quarters, from Senegal to Sierra Leone and the Gambia. Marseilles is 

 the chief port to which they are shipped, and the following have been 

 the imports. 



The following shows the imports of ground-nuts into Marseilles in 

 the last twenty years in metrical quintals : 



Year. 



In Shell. 



Year. 



In Shell. 



1855 



225,290 

 270,746 



1866 



298,170 



1856 



1867 



403,020 



1857 



260,425 



1868 



423,370 



1858 



250,245 



1869 



329,070 



1859 



211,700 



1870 



417,650 



1860 



216,570 



1871 



419,120 

 435,890 



1861 



175,390 



1872 



1862 



281,430 



1873 



445,760 



1863 



237,460 



1874 



624,650 

 559,430 



1864 



277,700 



1875 



1865 



321,890 





Besides this quantity, 50,000 to 60,000 metrical quintals are imported 

 shelled or husked. The imports of shelled nuts in 1875 were 64,000 

 metrical quintals. 



Commencing with an export in 1837 of 671 tons, valued at 8053Z., 

 the average annual shipment of ground-nuts from the Gambia between 

 1850 and 1860 was 11,196^ tons. In some years, as in 1871, it reached 

 nearly 17,000 tons. The average of the four years ending 1873 was 

 13,748 tons per annum. The bulk is sent to France. 



The ground-nut is principally cultivated down the borders of the 

 river, and in British territory by the Serrawoolies. They are a nomadic 

 tribe of Mohammedan farmers of the Senegambia ; they leave their 

 wives and children far up the country, and wander to the seaboard in 

 search of fallow ground, to be left again as soon as the crops have 

 worn out the soil. The native has unfortunately introduced, of late 

 years, the pernicious system of beating, or threshing, instead of 

 picking by hand, whereby the nuts are mixed with leaves, stalks, 

 stones, and other extraneous substances, causing large deductions in 

 the French market, and depreciating their value in the United States 

 as an article of food, or, better to be described, as a favourite dessert for 

 the tables of the rich in the latter country. The resident native, the 

 Jolloffe, or the liberated African, surrounded by his Lares and Penates, 

 in the shape of women, children, and domestic servants, or slaves, 

 tal^es his time to pick the nuts, saving the haulm for the Bathurst 

 market, where it meets with a ready sale as fodder for horses ; but 

 the Serrawoolie, who is anxious for quick returns, has not the time, 

 and certainly not the energy, to pick two acres of ground-nuts 

 between December and May, land which he can easily dress, work, 

 and sow in June and November, hence he loses the fodder, but 

 brings a larger quantity of nuts to the market. 



