7
Productions for Consumption and Export.
sweeter than that from the Southern States, may be said to form the main article of food to the native African. It is, in fact, his bread, for which it furnishes a good substitute. It is easily raised on either high or low land, being planted at the beginning of the wet season. The sweet potato is also known to you. It can be raised the entire year in Africa, and dug from the earth every month, for use. It grows much larger than in this country; I have seen specimens of it weighing twelve pounds each. Indian corn can be raised as easily as in this country, but is not much cultivated, both natives and colonists preferring other articles of food. Of garden vegetables, the Lima bean is much used by the Liberians—it grows most luxuriantly, the same stock producing several years, requiring little cultivation or replanting. The tomato and egg-plant are also indigenous to Africa, and grow there in abundance and of several varieties. Other garden vegetables, with which you are acquainted here, can be raised there, although they do not thrive well or produce seed—therefore are generally neglected, excepting, perhaps, cabbages. But the place of these is more than supplied by vegetables peculiar to Africa, with which you are unacquainted, and which no inhabitant of the Tropics would exchange for those you raise here. Among these the plantain and the cassada are the principal—either of which is often used as the sole and exclusive vegetable food by the natives for months. They, with rice, constitute not only the principal food of Africa, but of the tropical world. To describe them would be useless; 'tis only necessary to say, that they are raised with little labor, are healthful and acceptable as food to all, whether natives or foreigners.
The principal fruits of Liberia with which you are acquainted are the pine apple, orange, lemon, limes and cocoa-nuts, all of which grow in a wild state and under cultivation, and can be raised to very great extent with little trouble. The oranges are the finest in the world. There are a great variety of other fruits, of which you probably know nothing, as banana in variety, guavas, the mango, the alligator pear, the sappotilla, the sour and the sweet sop, paw-paw, tamarind, pomegranate, granadilla, rose apple, &c. &c. Some very abundant and in general use, others of less importance, but all making an extensive and delicious variety.
Staple Productions.—First in importance comes sugar, from the sugar cane, the same plant which produces it in the West Indies. No part of the world produces a better growth of cane than Liberia. I have seen over sixty acres ready for grinding in one field. Next, coffee, the "Liberia Mocha," as it is properly called, is the richest coffee known, and brings a larger price in market than any other. To these may be added, cotton, ginger, ground nuts, arrow root, pepper, indigo, and several others, of more or less importance. All of the above are mainly raised by the American colonists. But the great export staple of Liberia is palm oil, made by the natives of the country. This is a most valuable article of commerce, and is yearly growing in greater demand. It is not unreasonable to calculate that it will scarcely be second to any other in the world, in time—nor is it too much, to aver, that the
