332 . J MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
a people can live and multiply. The lowest is that which is. most 
easily produced, that is, which is produced with the smallest amount 
of skill and labour, and in this respect the banana is before the potato, 
and the sago perhaps even below the banana. The banana yields a 
crop in ten months from the time of planting, perpetuates itself by 
rattoons, and requires little care in its growth. Humboldt reckons 
that the produce of the same extent of land in bananas and wheat is 
in the proportion of 135 of banana to 1 of wheat, and that of the 
potato as 44 to 1. The sago-palm takes about ten years to yield its 
produce, but grows in a bog where nothing else will thrive, requires no 
care in culture, and, like the banana, propagates itself by shoots. Mr. 
Logan estimates the produce of the sago-palm, compared with wheat, 
as 163 to 1, and as compared to the potato, as 53 to 1. The quantity 
of nutriment contained in the banana and sago are by no means in 
proportions thus given, for we have to deduct the large proportion of 
water which they contain, and the absence in them of gluten, the most 
nutritious portion of the cerealia. Humboldt informs us that the 
Spanish settlers in America were so satisfied of the evil consequences 
of living on the banana that they frequently entertained the violent 
remedy of extirpating the plant, as the only cure for overcoming the 
apathy and idleness of those who made it their only bread—the Indians 
and half-breeds. The sago-feeders, however, are by no means so pre- 
possessed in favour of sago, and never fail to prefer rice, or even the 
yam and sweet-potato, their consumption of it being a matter of ne- 
cessity and not of choice. 
A plain objection to root and similar crops, as compared to cereals, 
remains to be noticed. Root crops are, with few exceptions, incapable 
of being stored for a length of time, so that the superfluity of one 
harvest shall make up for deficiency of a future one. The potato lasts 
but for a year at best, and the tropical roots not much longer, while 
wheat, oats, and barley will keep for ten years; rice, in the husk, for 
fifty ; while with the cereals there is far less difficulty in storing and 
transport. 
Abstracts of the more important remaining papers will be given in 
the next number of the Journal. 
