CoLENSo. — On Four Notable Foreign Plants. 337 



States will ever be able to compete with the West Indies in 

 rearing a fruit which flourishes in such perfection all over 

 Jamaica and the Antilles generally. Central Africa, too, is 

 becoming one vast banana plantation. For miles and miles 

 nothing else is seen ; even the Indians of Central and South 

 America have not taken more kindly to it. Captain Lugard 

 describes the fruit as the national meat and drink. 



In all these lands the plants grow with great ease, in spite 

 of the fact that in many of them they receive the least amount 

 of care. To set out a new plantation is the simplest of opera- 

 tions. The stems, formed by the base of the leaves, are 

 annual, and usually die down after the exhaustive process of 

 fruiting has been completed, new ones being produced from 

 buds or suckers in the root-stock, which is perennial. It is by 

 planting these buds that the banana is propagated, and fresh 

 plantations made ; and so exceedingly simple is this form of 

 agriculture that the plant generally bears rij)e fruit within ten 

 months of the offsets being put into the ground. Emin Pasha 

 tells us that, though the plantations in Africa are well kept, 

 the only manure they receive is bunches of grass allowed to 

 rot around the base of each plant. 



In conclusion, I may briefly observe that I have often been 

 struck with admiration when considering the banana-plant, 

 and noticing (here in New Zealand) the great size and heavy 

 weight of its bunch of fruit, not unfrequently from 401b. to 

 501b. (while in the West Indies such attains to even 701b., and 

 I have been credibly informed that in South America some 

 sorts bear a bunch of fruit weighing over 1001b.) — this, too, 

 growing high up on the single columnar reed- like stem of the 

 plant, and projecting far from it in a drooping form when the 

 fruit is formed. There is such a wonderful provision of 

 nature to sustain such a heavy mass when extended hanging 

 by its simple annual stem, coupled with the bounteous gift of 

 such a wholesome, ever-plentiful, and easily-grown fruit to the 

 natives of the tropics. I have sometimes compared (mentally) 

 the banana, as to its fruit being that of an annual plant, and 

 produced in large quantities, with that of the pumpkin, another 

 annual, whose fruits are often of a large size and weight ; but 

 the fruits of the weak pumpkin-vines are supported on the 

 ground, and the plant itself is only raised with much care and 

 attention from seed annually sown. 



While staying a few days last month in the bush (at 

 Dannevirke), I saw an express-waggon bringing away from 

 the railway-station a compact load of green bananas in large 

 bunches, each bunch set upon its end in the conveyance, till- 

 ing it, and coming along slowly. On inquiry, I found there 

 were twenty bunches of bananas. It was a remarkable sight, 

 there in that place so far inland. 

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