The natural products include fine cabinet and construction woods, rubber, fruit, palm oil and fibres.
The profits obtained from ground-nuts (Arachis hypogea) in Gambia, gold mining in the Gold Coast, and from products of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) in the palm-oil belt serve to prevent much attention being given to cotton in these districts.
The chief trade is in, and the principal exports are, palm oil and kernels, rubber, cotton, maize, groundnuts (Arachis), shea-butter from the Bassia parkii (Sapotaceae), fibres of the Raphia vinifera, and the Sansevieria guineensis, indigo, and kola nuts, ebony and other valuable wood.
Here the slave trade was longer maintained than anywhere else on the Nest African seaboard; since its extirpation, palm oil and india-rubber have been the main objects of commerce.
In Germany tallow is the principal fat; in France olive oil occupies the chief place and the product is known as Marseilles or Castile soap; and in England tallow and palm oil are largely used.
