[products A F R X C A The resources of Africa may be considered under the parts. This was due not so much to the poverty of the country in natural resources, as to special circumstances head of—(1) jungle products; (2) cultivated products; which likewise caused so large a part of the continent (3) animal products; (4) minerals. Of the to remain a tervci incognita down to the 19th cen- first-named the most important are india-rubber and palm-oil, which in tropical Africa supply by far the tury. The principal drawbacks may be summarized as : (1) Absence of means of communication with the interior ; largest items in the export list. The rubber-producing (2) the unhealthiness of the coast lands; (3) the small plants are found throughout the whole tropical Jungle productive activity of the natives; (4) the effects of the belt, and the most important are creepers of the pro(iucts. slave trade in discouraging legitimate commerce. Of order Apocynaceoe, especially various species of these the first and last are not necessarily permanent, Landolphia (with which genus Vahea is now united). while the third can be remedied by the introduction of In East Africa Landolphia kirkii (Dyer) supplies by far Europeans as supervisors, and possibly of other races as the largest amount, though at least four other species are known. Forms of apparently wider distribution are labourers. 134
L. heudelotii, which is found in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and extends right across the continent to Senegambia; and L. (formerly Vahea) comorensis, which, including its variety L. Jlorida, has the widest distribution of all the species, occurring in Upper and Lower Guinea, the whole of Central Africa, the east coast, the Comoro Islands and Madagascar. In Lagos and Cameroon much rubber is produced by a large apocynaceous tree, Kickxia africana, and in West Africa generally by various species of Ficus, some promising species of which are also found in East Africa. The rubber produced is somewhat inferior to that of South America, but this is largely due to careless methods of preparation. The great destruction of vines brought about by native methods of collection has already much reduced the supply in some districts, and renders it
precarious everywhere, unless some means are taken to cultivate the rubber - yielding plants. This has already been attempted in Cameroon and elsewhere. Experiments have been made in the introduction of South American rubber plants, but opinions differ as to the prospects of success, as the plants in question seem to demand very definite conditions of soil and climate. For cultivation the Ficus mdica is said to be a favourable tiee, but possibly some endemic species of Ficus might prove equally valuable. The second product, palm-oil, is at present derived from a much more limited area, for although the oil palm is found throughout the greater part of West Africa, from 10° N. to 10° S., the great bulk of the export comes from the coast districts at the head of the Gulf of Guinea. A larger supply would certainly be
