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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and plantain were formerly considered as distinct species, but now 

 the plantain is regarded as a variety of the banana (Musa sa- 

 pientum). The name of the plantain (Musa paradisiaca) origi- 

 nated with the Christians in the East, as they thought it to be the 

 forbidden fruit of paradise. The plantain is cooked and eaten as a 

 vegetable, but is not exported to any extent. It is said to be " to the 

 inhabitants of the torrid zone what bread and potatoes are to those 



Buying Sweet Potatoes. 



of the north temperate zone," for a pound of plantains contains more 

 nutriment than three pounds of meat.* It is also the most prolific 

 of all food plants known. Humboldt, the German naturalist, cal- 

 culated that thirty-three pounds of wheat and ninety-eight pounds 

 of potatoes require for their growth the same space of ground as will 

 produce four thousand pounds of bananas. Such a striking state- 

 ment would seem to need verification, yet the yield is undoubtedly 

 very great. The banana plant rises from fifteen to twenty feet in 

 height, terminated by a tuft of enormous light-green leaves six to 

 ten feet long, which are at first undivided, but are gradually split up 

 by the wind. From the center issues a stalk bearing the fruit, which 

 gradually turns upward, while the stalk itself continues to grow 

 down, and this end is termed the " banana bob." As we are accus- 



* Text-book of Tropical Agriculture. By H. A. Alford Nicholls. 



