The twenty African states of this coast have forty seaports. In the year 1919 their total trade was more than $40,000,000. This is a more valuable trade than the United States had in its early years. The cocoa industry of the little forested colony called the Gold Coast, gives us an idea of what the future trade of the African forest region may become. A few years ago one of the English governors of the Gold Coast planted a few cocoa trees. The trees grew, and before long a hundred pounds of beans were exported. More trees were planted, and to-day the export of cocoa beans amounts to one hun dred thousand tons a year. The country is especially well suited to the cocoa tree, which needs the windless climate of the Zone of Calms, so that the big fruits will not be blown to the ground before they are ripe. The growing of cocoa is very simple. It suits the native. He merely cuts the bushes away frdm the young cocoa trees that are already growing there, and keeps the jungle down with the machete. No other work is needed until the fruit is ready to pick.
738. Changes in the white man's ships have been going to Africa, one new industry after another has come there— come even to the equatorial forest. First, the white men wanted ivory, for which the natives had but little use. Then he wanted rubber. So the black men first hunted elephants, and then they hunted rubber trees. The white man now wants palm oil and palm kernels and cocoa, besides ivory and rubber.
739. The new transportation.—English en gineers and native workmen have built a railroad inland from Akkra, the port of the Gold Coast. They are also building many wagon roads, over which they run motor trucks. A truck with a capacity of one ton carries as many cocoa beans as do thirty-six native carriers. The truck makes several trips while the carrier is making one. Thus we see how the white man's machines can increase African production.
The steamboats of the Kongo now give a good freight service to the heart of the African forest. In the western part of the forest region, the Niger, the Senegal, and the con necting railroads are the arteries of trade.
740. Cleaning up in jungle white man, often assisted• by black police men, helps to keep order. The tribes now rarely kill each other in war, or sell each other as slaves, or eat each other, as they used to do. Swamps are being drained; physi cians are improving conditions of health. We may, therefore, expect the population of the African forest region to increase per haps as rapidly as that of Java or of the United States has increased. In the decades to come these people may produce and send to us in trade enormous amounts of cocoa, palm oil, banana meal, peanuts, tapioca, rubber, and other products of their little farms. If. the population becomes more dense, and if the people grow accustomed to steady work, they may grow sugar cane and rice, to which the country is well suited.