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Cultivation. 
The Oil palm is raised from seed, which can be sown in beds, 
and later planted out, when they are about a foot tall. 1 hev should 
be planted not less than twenty feet apart. The soil it prefers is 
damp semimarshy soil (S. FreelING in Kew Bulletin 1889, p.262), 
where water however, does not stand. In arid dry soil it becomes 
stumpy a*nd grows Very slowly sometimes bearing at four feet, 
instead of developing to 10 or 12 feet in height. This account o, 
the plant as it grows in Lagos is quite confirmed by its habits heref 
In stiff clay it makes hardly any growth. Plants grown in the 
gardens in this situation have in 18 years or more not made a stem 
more than two feet tall while trees planted at the same date in a 
lmver and damper spot are magnificent trees of 20 feet tall. The 
biggest or rather tallest one in the gardens, forty feet tall, is growl- 
ing in damp ground with the sago palms. It may be about thirty 
years of age. One planted by the edge of the lake where it has 
much water but not stagnant water at its roots, has only attained 
since 1897, a height of 2 feet, but it fruits heavily. 
There is some advantage in having the tree not too tail, as it is 
easier to gather the nuts and to protect them too from squirrels 
which are very partial to them. 
The palm does not seem to possess many enemies. A species 
<of Rhynchophorus attacks it in Africa but according to Dr. PREUSS, 
does not do much harm. I have never known the common coconut 
Rhynchophorus nor the larger species attack it. 
The tree begins to fruit about 5 th and 6th year, and is said to 
last in bearing for 60 years or more, and produces three or four 
more rarely five or as f many as seven bunches of fruit in the year. 
There seems to be some variation in the returns in different parts 
of Africa. Pech,u^.l Loescjhe states that each bunch weighs 
30 kilogrammes, froin, which 2-94 kg. oil and 3*84 kg. kernels can 
be got. Its yearly output' is 120 kg. fruit or H'76 kg. oil, and 
15*36 kg. kernels. 
WARBURG says a planter can reckon on 50 kg. fruit a year. In 
the Kew Bulletin it is stated that '3,276,000 gallons of pafm-oil are 
the product of 1,638,000 trees which gives 2 gallons of oil to each 
tree. MOLONY says each tree gives 40 pounds weight of fruit, and 
it takes 30 to 35 pounds of fruit to make a gallon of oil. 
The tree in good ground here certainly fruits well, but no record 
has been kept of .the weight of fruit produced. Dr. PREUSS when 
on a visit to the Gardens expressed surprise at its fertility and was 
still more surprised that it was not cultivated largely in a country 
so well suited for it. 
Preparation, 
The native method of obtaining the oil is to throw the sprays 
of fruit which contain as many as 4,000 nuts into a pit till they 
become somewhat decayed. The fruit is then pounded in a mortar 
till the husky fibre covering the nut is loosened. Then they are 
placed in large clay vats filled with water and trampled on till the 
