The Palm Tree and Its Products
The profitable carrying on of this industry depends on the demand for palm oil and the use which can be made of the residues. That the supply of palm kernels themselves should decline is unthinkable. The steady increase in their growth in all parts of the West African Coast is conclusive evidence of their almost limitless possibilities. Moreover, the statistics clearly show the extensive nature of the demand. Great Britain and Germany are no longer the only purchasers; South Africa has entered the market, as well as Holland and France, though their lots are comparatively small, and could not in any way effect the profitable exploitation of kernel-crushing on a large scale.
In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute, entitled “The War: British and German Trade in Nigeria,” Mr. R. E. Dennett, of the Forest Department, Nigeria, made it abundantly evident that Germany had been farming the commerce of the Protectorates to the detriment of the Britisher. He showed from statistics that Germany’s export trade to Nigeria greatly exceeded ours, while of the Nigerian produce which left the country, Germany in 1913 took nearly all the copra, half the cocoa, more than two-thirds of the palm kernels, one-eighth of the palm oil, half the hides, one-third of the mahogany, more than half the ground-nuts, over a third of the shea nuts, and all the palm kernel cake.
On the subject of the palm tree and its products, Mr. Dennett is both interesting and instructive, and in view of its inevitable increase in importance as a British industry, the following extracts from his paper may be usefully reproduced here.
“People who have little or no knowledge of the palm tree (Elæis guineensis) confuse the palm fruit with the palm kernel. The palm kernel of commerce is the seed of the palm tree. This is surrounded by a hard shell, and it is then called the palm nut. This shell is in its turn covered by an oily fibrous matter, and is then known as the palm fruit. If we take this fruit and cut it into two parts, we can see these three parts of the fruit more distinctly; first the outer yellow covering or the fibrous pericarp, from which the palm oil of commerce is extracted; then the shell, and finally the kernel, from which the white palm kernel oil is extracted.
“The composition of this fruit is as follows:—
| Pericarp Oil | 18 | per cent. |
| Fibre and Moisture | 12 | ″ |
| Shell and Disk | 58 | ″ |
| Kernel | 12 | ″ |
| Total | 100 | ″ |
“The uses of the palm oil tree are various. It yields the palm oil and kernels of commerce. It gives the native a drink he is very fond of, called palm wine, which, when fermented, gives our cooks yeast for bread-making. The shells of the nuts are used by blacksmiths as fuel, as they give off great heat. At the present time there are three methods of making palm oil: (a) from the fresh fruit, (b) from partially fermented fruit, and (c) from well fermented fruit.