In Our Own Possessions The Making Of Plantations Is Being Carried On
With Much Energy By Messrs.
Miller Brothers on the Gold Coast, {468}
by several private capitalists, including Mr. A. L. Jones of
Liverpool, at Lagos; by the Royal Niger Company in their territory,
and by several head Agents in the Niger Coast Protectorate.
Sir
Claude MacDonald offered every inducement to this trade development,
and gave great material help by founding a botanical station at Old
Calabar, where plants could be obtained. 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.
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