Editing Tanganyika groundnut scheme (section)

==Cultivation==
The advance party set up camp at [[Kongwa]], not far from [[Dodoma]] (now the capital of Tanzania), and scouted out the area. They deemed it suitable for groundnuts despite the large amount of clay and the local shortage of water, and established the scheme's headquarters there.  Gradually a whole town was established, known locally as 'Half London', as half the population of London seemed to wash up there over time.{{fact|date=November 2022}}

Obtaining the heavy equipment necessary to clear the land for cultivation, however proved difficult. Eventually, the project managers found some suitable [[tractor]]s and [[bulldozer]]s from Canada and bought up U.S. [[Army surplus]] tractors from the Philippines, though many proved to be too rusted to use.  These then had to be transported through the [[Port of Dar es Salaam]], which became hopelessly congested, to the inland site using the only available transport, a single-track railway with steam locomotives. A sudden flood of the [[Kinyansungwe River]] wiped out part of the rail tracks, leaving a dirt road as the only means of transport.  This delayed the arrival of the bulldozers needed for clearing until April 1947.{{fact|date=November 2022}}

Even then, the bush proved far harder to clear than the planners had expected.  Besides the natural hazards of local wildlife (on several occasions workers had to face angry [[elephant]]s and [[rhinoceros]]), they found the large local [[baobab]] trees were hard to remove, a task made more difficult by one of them being a local tribal jail, another a site of [[ancestor worship]], and many had [[bee]]s' nests in their hollow trunks.  Several workers were hospitalised with vicious bee stings.

But the main casualties were the heavy machines. By the end of the summer of 1947, two-thirds of the imported tractors had been rendered unusable. Bulldozer blades that were used to extract ground roots were ruined in a couple of days.  In the spirit of 'making do', the scheme bought up surplus [[Sherman tank]]s and got the [[Vickers]] engineering company to take the armour off and put a bulldozer blade on the front, creating what were known as  "[[Post–World War II Sherman tanks#Civilian variants|shervicks]]"&mdash;but these too proved no match for the African bush.  Eventually, in the wooded Southern Province, they discovered that a long chain linked between two bulldozers would flatten all the trees in between, while a third bulldozer was used to overturn any trees that resisted the chain. The first order for a suitable ship's anchor chain from London was, however, cancelled by the managers in London because they thought it was a joke.{{fact|date=November 2022}}

In September 1947, the African workers joined a nationwide strike for three days; the expatriate staff were less than delighted to have to do their own cooking.  A growing number of Africans were then employed as tractor drivers and, after early errors, became skilled at the job.{{fact|date=November 2022}}

With great difficulty, the Groundnut Army was finally able to plant the first nuts.  When the rainy season arrived, some of the workshops and stores were swept away by a flash flood.   After that, the hot season baked the ground clay into a hard surface that made harvesting the nuts very difficult.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Westcott|title=Imperialism and Development|pages=78–113}}</ref>