366 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



upon this fruit for their subsistence, propagate the 

 plant by suckers. Yet an all-bountiful Nature is, in 

 this case, ready to diminish the labours of man — 

 perhaps too ready for the proper developement of his 

 energies, both physical and moral. Eight or nine 

 months after the sucker has been planted, the banana 

 begins to form its clusters ; and the fruit may be 

 collected in the tenth and eleventh months. When 

 the stalk is cut, the fruit of Avhich has ripened, a 

 sprout is put forth, which again bears fruit in three 

 months. The whole labour of cultivation which is 

 required for a plantation of bananas is to cut the 

 stalks laden with ripe fruit, and to give the jjlants a 

 slight nourishment, once or twice a year, by digging 

 round the roots. A spot of a little more than a 

 thousand square feet will contain from thirty to forty 

 banana plants. A cluster of bananas, produced on a 

 single plant, often contains from one hundred and 

 sixty to one hundred and eighty fruits, and weighs 

 from seventy to eighty pounds. But reckoning the 

 weight of a cluster only at forty pounds, such a plan- 

 tation would produce more than four thousand pounds 

 of nutritive substance. M. Humboldt 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 consequently to that of 

 wheat as 133 : 1, and to that of potatoes as 44 : 1. 



The banana ripened in the hothouses of Europe 

 has an insipid taste ; but yet the natives of both Indies, 

 to many millions of whom it supplies their principal 

 food, eat it with avidity, and are satisfied with 

 the nourishment it alFords. This fruit is a very 

 sugary substance ; and in warm countries the natives 

 find such food not only satisfying for the moment, 

 but permanently nutritive. Yet, weight for weight, 



