28 
MISSIONARY LIFE 
then let them lie during one dry season, or unti 
they become so dry that they burn up without 
further trouble, when fire is put to them. 
Their superficial method of agriculture, as a 
matter of course, soon exhausts the soil. Seldom 
is the same spot cultivated more than two or three 
years until it is left, and before it becomes suffi- 
ciently replenished to be productive again it ia 
overgrown with bush and saplings of considerable 
size. There being no winter, shrubbery grows 
rapidly ; and it is astonishing to one who has lived in 
a cold latitude to see the height to which it attains 
in a single year. From one to five acres is as 
much as a family cultivates at the same time, but 
from two to three crops may be grown the same 
year. 
They also manufacture palm-oil, which is 
made from the shuck or hull of the nut ; and a 
very ^superior oil is made of the kernel of the 
palm-nut, which is called nut-oil. This is quite 
as good for culinary purpos'es as lard, and makes 
a very superior burning-fluid. 
Country cloths are made by them from cotton, 
which grows spontaneously. Cotton grows on 
hushes about the size of the currant-bush, and 
some on what is called the cotton-tree, which is 
the largest of the forest. Some of these trees 
measure ten feet and more in diameter at their base* 
