Up-to-date Modern Machinery for dealing with Palm Oil and Kernels at La Societe des Huileries du Congo.
Fed in mixture with locust-bean meal, it is taken readily by
stock, and no difficulty need be experienced in storing cake containing a
comparatively large percentage of oil."
The County of Northumberland Education Committee has issued a very valuable report on palm-kernel cake and meal, and coconut
cake compared with Soya cake for fattening cattle and sheep. The trials
were carried out at the County Agricultural Experiment Station, Cockle
Park. The summary results were:-
| Standard Ration. |
Palm Kernel Cake Ration | Palm Kernel Meal Ration. | Coconut Cake Ration. | |
| Bollocks, . Heifers, . Average, . | Lbs. 16.50 8.92 12.71 |
Lbs. 12.44 10.00 11.22 | Lbs. 14.19 9.25 11.72 |
Lbs. 15.70 7.42 11.56 |
The cakes and meal were kept in the granary and were in quite good condition after being stored for some months.
In some previous trials palm-kernel cake gave the cattle more glossy
coats and more ' bloom," but in these trials no such effect was produced
on the fattening cattle or on the young stirks.
Better average gains were given by those wintered inside than those
wintered outside, but at the end of March practical valuers attached
30s. a head more value to those wintered outside, as they had better
coats of hair and were more promising grazing cattle. Palm-kernel meal
gave better results than palm-kernel cake with these young cattle,
although the meal contained less than 2 per cent, of oil and the cake
nearly 6 per cent. The gains per week were quite satisfactory for such
store cattle in winter, and each lot went through the winter well.
The sheep used were three parts bred hogs and had been bred near
Rothbury in 1915. All the lots made satisfactory gains, which indicated
palm-kernel cake and palm-kernel meal as suitable foods for fattening
sheep. Again palm-kernel meal gave a better result than palm-kernel
cake.
The fattening bullocks made average net gains of from £3 to £6 a
head. Their live weight value increased from 47s. to 62s. a cwt. during
the fattening period. The fattening heifers made average net gains of
50s. to 64s. a head. The net gains per head for the stirks varied from
10s. to 23s., and their value as stores increased from 42s. 6d. a cwt.
at the beginning of the winter to 48s. at the end. The fattening hogs
made net gains per head of from 3s. to 5s., and improved in live weight
value from 5 1/2|d. to 6 1/4d. a lb. during the fattening period.
Palm-kernel meal is found to be an excellent basis for a pig meal,
and as more oil is obtained from palm kernels by means of the extraction
process of which palm-kernel meal is the by-product, it was also of the
greatest importance to test extracted palm-kernel meal as a
feeding-stuff.
The following table gives the composition of palm-kernel cake in
comparison with coconut, linseed, and cotton-seed cakes :Constituents
per Cent.
| Soya Cake. | Egypt Cotton Cake. |
Coconut Cake. | Palm-Nut Cake. | Palm-Kernel Meal. | Maize. | |
| Moisture, | 10.40 | 11.60 | 11.65 | 11.00 | 12.40 | 14.30 |
| Oil, ... | 6 03 | 4.07 | 8.37 | 5.40 | 1.35 | 4.54 |
| Albuminoids, . | 43.85 | 24.30 | 21.75 | 21.00 | 18.81 | 9.89 |
| Carbo-hydrates, | 29.97 | 34.33 | 41.96 | 43.2 | 40.94 | 68.20 |
| Fibre, . | 4.60 | 20.5 | 10.75 | 15.78 | 22.60 | 1.47 |
| Ash, Nitrogen, | 515 | 5.55 | 5.52 | 3.70 | 3.90 | 1.00 |
| 100 00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | |
| 7.02 | 3.89 | 3.48 | 3.36 | 3.01 | 1.58 | |
| Sand, | 0.65 | 0.70 | 1.05 | 0.75 | 0.80 | none |
| Digestible oil, . | 5.5 | 3.8 | 81 | 5.2 | 1.3 | 4 0 |
| Digestible true albu- | ||||||
| minoids, | 37.7 | 19.9 | 16.5 | 17.5 | 15.6 | 6.7 |
| Digestible carbo-hy- | ||||||
| drates and fibre, | 21.6 | 28.6 | 41.5 | 46.1 | 49.4 | 65.4 |
| Starch equivalent, | 67 | 47 | 80 | 75 | 66 | 82 |
Another product of the oil palm which is not so generally known is
fibre ; this fibre is of very good quality, and realises as much as £60 a
ton on the Liverpool market.
It is the only fibre that is sufficiently fine and strong to make
fishing lines, and this is the only use to which it is put by the
natives. It is obtained from the young pinnae, the older leaves being
too strong and coarse to permit the hand-extraction of the fibre.
The process of extraction is laborious, and, therefore,
unremunerative, the cost of the production being as high as £75 a ton.
There remains, however, a possi-pility that a mechanical or a chemical
process may be introduced to separate the fibre from the pinnae cheaply.
The tendency in the palm oil and kernel trade is to have large
factories and mills on the spot for treating the material, and,
therefore, a few words are necessary on this subject. First, the
selection of a site for an oil-palm factory necessitates a careful
examination of the productivity of oil palms in the vicinity.
Secondly, factories requiring large supplies of palm fruit near at
hand will probably have to resort to plantation methods, in which case
the choice of the best variety of palm for planting will be essential.
Thirdly, a factory requiring 5 tons of palm fruit daily and producing
from about | to 1 ton of palm oil, will require about 30,000 trees (say
80 to the acre). This is based upon the calculation that, as the fruit
heads consist of only 64 per cent, of fruit (the remainder being useless
fibrous stem, bracts, etc.), it would be necessary to collect and
transport to the factory nearly 8 tons of fruit heads daily, or, taking
the number of working days in the year as 200, and thus allowing for the
fact that the palms do not bear fully throughout the year, over 1,500
tons per annum.
Smart (Committee on Edible and Oil-producing Nuts and Seeds, Minutes
of Evidence, 1916) states that an area of 14 square miles (about 9,000
acres) would be desirable for the establishment of a factory working
10,000 tons of fruit a year, but that such an area in full bearing would
produce over 25,000 tons of fruit a year, or 1,000 tons of fruit per
annum from 360 acres, which agrees closely with the figure arrived at
above. It is obvious that large factories would require considerable
areas even under plantation conditions, but that under the present
conditions, where the trees are largely wild and irregularly distributed
and where it is necessary to allow for bad seasons, the loss of fruit
owing to animal and human depredations and other eventualities, a much
larger area would be required. From the above considerations it is
evident that even a moderate-sized factory must be located in the centre
of a large oil-palm area, and that considerable quantities of fruit
must be collected and transported over long distances, necessitating a
good supply of cheap labour and adequate transport facilities.
