512 CULTURE OF THE BANANA. 



the Isle of France, and the M. Dacca, from the East Indies, neither 

 of which exceed the height of from three feet to six feet. The culture 

 of these plants for their fruit in British stoves is of very recent date, 

 but as the fruit is excellent, and the plant easily grown, it may be well 

 briefly to describe its culture. All the varieties of banana are propa- 

 gated by suckers ; they are grown in large pots or tubs, eighteen 

 inches or two feet in diameter, in a mixture of sand, loam, and 

 thoroughly rotten dung, and watered with liquid manure. The same 

 temperature that suits the pine-apple will suit the banana. Suckers 

 will fruit within a year or eighteen months, according to their strength, 

 and they may be retarded or accelerated so as to ripen their fruit at 

 almost every season. The following mode of cultivating the banana is 

 from the pen of the late Sir Joseph Paxton, who first grew this fruit 

 for dessert at Chatsworth, in 1836 : 



" A banana-house, thirty feet long, fifteen feet wide, twelve feet high 

 at the back and six feet high at the front, heated by flues or by hot 

 water, will hold about ten full-grown or fruiting plants, with room 

 between for different-sized successional ones, to be tubbed successively 

 as the large plants ripen off their fruit, these being shaken out of their 

 tubs as soon as the fruit is gathered, and potted, to produce suckers ; 

 by judicious management in tubbing and in administering water, a 

 supply of fruit may be had the greater part of the year. 1 have had 

 at one time ten fruiting plants nearly of the same size and age, being 

 suckers produced the same spring, and receiving similar treatment ; 

 yet no two of them produced their spadix at the same time; and even 

 if they are disposed to do so, it may be prevented, different treatment 

 being given them. As their approach to fruiting is easily ascertained 

 by their leaves decreasing in size, soon after which the embryo fruit- 

 stalk may be detected by the sudden swelling of the lower part 

 of the stem, if more than one should show these indications at one 

 time, the one it is desired to fruit first must have abundance of water 

 and the warmest situation, and the others be retarded by opposite 

 treatment. The period between them may be still further lengthened 

 a considerable time, if the whole spadix of fruit of one approaching 

 too close upon another in ripening be cut off with a portion of the 

 stem attached, when the upper tier of fruit is just ripening, and sus- 

 pended in a dry and airy room, in the way that late grapes are often 

 kept. I have cut excellent fruit from a spadix, two months after it 

 had been separated from the plant; and they may be made to ripen 

 fast or slowly in this manner, according to the temperature to which 

 they are exposed. The sooner the flower-stem is made to develope 

 itself, the longer the spadix will be, and the greater quantity of fertile 

 flowers it will produce; consequently the greater weight of fruit, 

 which will vary from fifteen to thirty pounds, according to the plant's 

 strength, the season, and other circumstances. I need hardly add that 

 the soil can scarcely be too rich, and that it should be rather light 

 than retentive, in order that abundance of water may be given, and 

 readily pass off. A pit forty feet long, fifteen feet broad, and five feet 

 high, will produce several hundredweight of fruit in a year, with no 



