TROPICAL INDUSTRIES 73 



the dark entanglement of the jungle is so fine that the 

 absence of edible fruit may be almost forgiven. 



In the most popular of the cultivated varieties, the far- 

 famed Musa Cavendishii, there is little of graceful form, 

 save the broad leaves mottled with brown. All the vitality 

 of the plant is expended in astonishing results. A com- 

 paratively lowly plant, its productions in suitable soil are 

 prodigious. In nine or ten months after the planting of the 

 rhizome, it bears under favourable conditions a bunch weigh- 

 ing as much as 120 Ib. to 160 Ib. and comprising as many as 

 forty-eight dozen individual bananas. So great is the weight 

 that to prevent the downfall of the plant a stake sharpened 

 at each end one to stick in the ground and the other into 

 the soft stem is needed to buttress it. Before the fruit has 

 fully developed, other shoots have appeared ; but each 

 plant bears but one bunch, and when that is removed the 

 plant is decapitated and slowly decays, and the second and 

 third and fourth shoots from the rhizome successively arrive 

 at the bearing stage and are permitted to mature each its 

 bunch and then fated to suffer immediate decapitation. 

 And so the process goes on for five or seven years, by which 

 time the vigour of the soil has been exhausted, and more- 

 over the rhizomes, originally planted about a foot deep, have 

 . grown up to the surface, and are no longer capable of support- 

 ing a plant upright. Then a fresh planting of rhizomes else- 

 where takes place. It must not be thought that the 

 banana defertilises the soil. Phenomenal crops of sugar- 

 cane are produced on a " banana-sick" land. 



A traveller relating his tropical experiences glorifies 

 the banana, stating that he has eaten it " ripe and luscious 

 from the tree." In North Queensland bananas ripening 

 on the plant frequently split, and seldom attain perfect 

 flavour. The ripening process takes place after the fully- 

 developed bunch is removed and hung up in a cool, shady, 

 well-aired locality. Then the fruit acquires its true luscious- 

 ness and aroma. Other climes, other results, perhaps ; but 

 a banana, " ripe and luscious from the tree," is not generally 

 expected in North Queensland. The fruit may mature 



