Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/81

 of an excellent kind. The attention of some of the most respectable colonists has been turned to its cultivation, and twenty thousand coffee-trees have been planted by a single individual. The indigo plant is indigenous, and grows wild almost everywhere on the coast. Cotton is easily cultivated, and the crops are productive. The sugar-cane is found on many parts of the coast, and may be cultivated in Liberia. Rice is easy of cultivation, and has long been the principal article of food to the natives. Bananas, of an excellent and delicious kind, plantains, oranges fine-flavoured and very large, and limes, are common; maize or Indian — corn ripens in three months, and succeeds well; pine-apples are very good and in great abundance; cocoanut-trees flourish there; pumpkins, squashes, cucumbers, water-melons, and musk-melons, arrive at great perfection in that climate. Cassada and yams are found in all parts of the coast, and are much used for food; palm-oil is produced in abundance; also tamarinds of various kinds; gum-senegal and copal are articles of export in great quantities; pepper, and a variety of other spices, as cayenne, ginger, nutmegs, and cinnamon, are common on the coast; several valuable dye-woods are found, of which camwood and barwood are exported in considerable quantities; gold abounds in many parts of Africa, and the amount exported may be greatly increased; ivory is also a great article of commerce, and timber of almost every quality. All these and many other productions are found in Africa, and are or may become sources of advantage and profit to the Liberian colony."