BANANA. 191 



lowed to grow and to carry fruit ; when a greater number make theil 

 appearance, some of them are cut away. The time which passes be- 

 tween planting the slip and gathering the fruit varies according to 

 the situation ; in the hottest districts near the level of the sea the 

 banana comes into flower about nine months after it has been plant- 

 ed ; and in three months more the fruit has formed and become ripe. 

 In cold situations an interval of four months will elapse between the 

 flowering and the ripening of the fruit. The care required by a ba- 

 nana plantation is not very great, the principal duty being to hoe 

 around the young plants. yVs the banana is renewed by stems which 

 arise continually from the neck of the root, it is easily understood 

 that the plant will go on yielding fruit for an indefinite length of 

 time ; when the fructification is complete in one stem, the leaves, 

 &c., wither and fall, and give place to a new stem. It is thus that 

 the gatherings from the banana go on successively at short intervals, 

 and that the same plant presents at one and the same moment fruit 

 that is ripe, fruit that is half ripe, fruit that is beginning to be formed 

 flowers, and finally young stems, which are rising as preparations for 

 the future. Thus no crop is more assuring to the planter than the 

 banana. Climatic circumstances may sometimes delay, but can never 

 destroy the hopes of the husbandman. The extraordinary droughts 

 which under the burning climates of the equator so frequently interrupt 

 or destroy ordinary herbaceous plants, rarely exert any pernicious 

 influence upon the banana plantation, the thick shade of which pre- 

 sents a constant obstacle to the evaporation of moisture. During 

 the dry season, when for whole months the heavens preserve their 

 purity, and no drop of rain falls to refresh the earth, the soil which 

 surrounds the banana still continues moist. It looks every morning 

 as it it had been watered during the night; this salutary effect is 

 produced by the nocturnal radiation of the leaves into the clear sky. 

 These leaves, whose extent of surface is considerable, always fall 

 several degrees below the temperature of the surrounding air, and 

 thus condense the watery vapor contained in the atmosphere, which 

 drips down to the foot of the plant. 



The produce of a banana plantation depends first upon the dis- 

 tance at which the bananas are placed, and next upon the climate. 

 It is generally estimated in the very warm climates, that a crop of 

 bananas will weigh about 44 lbs., and that from an adult plant three 

 crops will be obtained in the course of a year. In temperate coun- 

 tries, and towards the superior limits of the banana plant, they do 

 not reckon on more than two crops. According to M. de Humboldt, 

 the produce per acre, in hot countries where the mean temperature 

 is about 82° Fahr., will amount to 75 tons, 8 cwt. 1 qr. 17 lbs. ; at 

 Cauca, where the temperature is about 79° Fahr., the produce amounts 

 to 61 tons, 8 cwt. qr. 2 lbs. ; at Ibague, where the temperature is 

 not higher than about 72", the produce, according to M. Goudot's es- 

 timate, is 26 tons, 17 cwt. 3 qrs. 2 lbs. The pulp of the banana is 

 surrounded by a pod or husk of some thickness, which is easily de- 

 tached, and of which account must be taken if we would estimate 

 the actual weight of the truly alimentary matter afl^orded. In a 



