i PRIMITIVE TILLERS OF THE GROUND 9 



Either from his forest, then, or more likely from 

 the East, the African negro got his banana. If it 

 came to him from the East as a cultivated plant, 

 then probably it was something like the fruit we 

 know ; that is, it had a thick pulp, and in the 

 centre never more than a last remnant of seeds. 

 Next time we eat bananas let us look for these 

 last remains of seeds in the centre. They are 

 worth looking at. The wild kinds of bananas that 

 grow in the forests have large, bitter seeds, real 

 seeds, not the little specks we see in our bananas, 

 and round those bitter seeds there is a very little 

 tasteless pulp. Long generations of men (or more 

 likely of women) must have cultivated this wild 

 banana patiently, and with very little result, before 

 the banana of to-day was produced. 



The banana has no seeds ; how then can a new 

 plantation be made ? In this way : A banana plant 

 has a huge stem crowned with enormous leaves ; 

 each stem only produces one " bunch," and is cut 

 down as the fruit is ready. But just as we may 

 see shoots springing up round the base of a tree 

 which has been cut down, so new stems spring up 

 round the base of the banana stem. It is these 

 shoots which are taken to make new plantations, 

 and abo,ut eighteen months after they have been 

 put in they will each produce a bunch of bananas 

 in their turn. But remember what a bunch means 



