PLANTAIN TREE. . 175 



it, and this also yields a plantain in three months. 

 The labour of cultivation is, therefore, slight; it 

 merely consists in cutting the stalks laden with ripe 

 fruit, and of digging once or twice a year around the 

 roots. A spot of land consisting of little more than 

 a thousand square feet will contain from thirty to 

 forty banana plants; and each cluster of bananas 

 produced on a single plant often yields from one 

 hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty fruits. 

 The weight of a cluster is reckoned at forty pounds, 

 consequently such a plantation would produce more 

 than one thousand pounds of nutritive substance. 

 M. Humboldt further calculates that as thirty- 

 three pounds of wheat, and ninety-nine pounds of 

 potatoes, require the same space as that in which 

 four thousand pounds of bananas are grown, the 

 produce of bananas is to that of wheat as 1 33 to 1 , 

 and to that of potatoes as 44 to 1. 



The tribe of which the plantain is a member 

 comprises amomums, strelitzias, and heliconias ; 

 their stems are short and juicy, and they are 

 crowned with large and delicate silky leaves. One 

 of these, the ginger, is well known ; while the stre- 

 litzia, a native of the Cape of Good Hope, is cele- 

 brated for the splendour of its blossoms, and the 

 heliconias for their balsamic and nutritious quali- 

 ties. 



Travellers in the far-extended wilds of Guiana 

 are often astonished at the number of ants which 

 are seen among the grass and in the trees. Their 

 nests, formed on thick boughs, are four or five times 

 as large as those of the rook, and they have each a 



