CULTIVATION OF THE BANANA. 



such an amount of care, expense, and uncertainty, that gentlemen 

 with more limited means, and market-gardeuers who look to 

 profit only, are altogether deterred from the attempt. 



And, indeed, gentlemen and their gardeners generally, though 

 rarely failing to point out to the admiration of their friends their 

 specimens of " Bread-fruit " and Bananas, seldom entertain the 

 remotest hope, or conceive an idea, of ever fruiting them, so 

 universal is the notion of its impracticability. 



I, having grown and cut their fruit by cart-loads on mountains 

 within the Tropics, have become firmly impressed with the con- 

 viction that they may be fruited in this country, not only with 

 little difficulty, but at so small an expense, and with such a 

 degree of certainty, that any person with a properly constructed 

 "house" may grow them with much advantage and profit. 



The experience of upwards of five years within the Tropics 

 "beneath the wild Banana Tree" has thoroughly convinced me 

 that the practice commonly pursued in England is most 

 admirably calculated to prevent their fruiting. Let them be 

 removed from among the stove-flowering plants, give more bottom 

 heat and less water, and fruit-bearing plants will not long be so 

 rare in England as they now are. 



The following are conditions under which T. have grown richly- 

 flavoured golden bunches of the Musa Sapientum of 60 lbs. 

 weight and upwards, viz. : — 



The annual amount of rain falling in this district varies from 

 19 to 36 inches, distributed at uncertain intervals through the 

 year, but doing evident injury to the plants when falling in 

 quantity in the colder season. 



The atmosphere during the hotter or growing season is dry ; 

 the thermometer in the day time falling 15° or 18° by the appli- 

 cation of a drop of water to its bulb. At night the difference in 

 the two thermometers is 4° or 5°. 



During the colder or resthuj season the usual difference between 



