He Did His Utmost To Try
And Get The Natives To Embark On Plantation-Making, Ably Seconded By
Mr. Billington, The Botanist In Charge Of The Botanical Station, Who
Wrote An Essay In Effik On Coffee Growing And Cultivation At Large
For Their Special Help And Guidance.
A few chiefs, to oblige, took
coffee plants, but they are not enthusiastic, for the slaves that
would be required to tend coffee and keep it clean, in this vigorous
forest region, are more profitably employed now in preparing palm
oil.
Of the coffee plantation at Man o' War Bay I have already spoken,
and of those in Congo Francais, which, although not at present
shipping like the German plantation, will soon be doing so. In
addition to coffee and cacao attempts are being made in Congo
Francais to introduce the Para rubber tree, a large plantation of
which I frequently visited near Libreville, and found to be doing
well. This would be an excellent tree to plant in among coffee, for
it is very clean and tidy, and seems as if it would take to West
Africa like a duck to water, but it is not a quick cropper, and I am
informed must be left at least three or four years before it is
tapped at all, so, as the gardening books would say, it should be
planted early.
It is very possible many other trees producing tropical products
valuable in commerce might be introduced successfully into West
Africa. The cultivation of cloves and nutmegs would repay here
well, for allied species of trees and shrubs are indigenous, but the
first of these trees takes a long time before coming into bearing
and the cultivation of the second is a speculative affair. Allspice
I have found growing wild in several districts, but in no large
quantity. Cotton with a fine long staple grows wild in quantities
wherever there is open ground, but it is not cultivated by the
natives; and when attempts have been made to get them to collect it
they do so, but bring it in very dirty, and the traders having no
machinery to compress it like that used in America, it does not pay
to ship. Indigo is common everywhere along the Coast and used by
the natives for dyeing, as is also a teazle, which gives a very fine
permanent maroon; and besides these there are many other dyes and
drugs used by them - colocynth, datura soap bark, cardamom, ginger,
peppers, strophanthus, nux vomica, etc., etc., but the difficulty of
getting these things brought in to the traders in sufficient
quantities prevents their being exported to any considerable extent.
Tea has not been tried, and is barely worth trying, though there is
little doubt it would grow in Cameroons and Congo Francais where it
would have an excellent climate and pretty nearly any elevation it
liked. But I believe tea has of late years been discovered to be
like coffee, not such a stickler for elevation as it used to be
thought, merely requiring not to have its roots in standing water.
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