314 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15, 



m 



NOTES OF TRAVEL 



4 BY A. I. ROOT . 



HH 



BERMUDA AND ITS PRODUCTS. 

 Most people are more or less familiar with 

 the banana-plant, so I need not take pains to 

 give much of a description. The picture ad- 

 joining will tell you something what they are 

 like ; and, in fact, most people have seen 



BANANAS AND PAPAYA-TREES GROWING ON THE ISLAND OF BERMUDA. 



them in greenhouses. The banana does best 

 on rather low land. It must have a great 

 quantity of some sort of fertilizer. On rich 

 ground, where they are well taken care of, the 

 plants stand as close as from four to six feet 

 apart, each one frequently bearing a stem of 

 fruit that would -.be .about all a man would 



want to lift I was somewhat disappointed in 

 not finding ripe yellow bananas growing out 

 in the fields. They are always gathered, or 

 almost always, before they turn yellow, and 

 are hung up in the groceries to ripen. After 

 a plant has borne its fruit it dies down, and 

 another one comes up from the same root, and 

 thus the process goes on. It seems to me that 

 a quarter of an acre in bananas, under high 

 culture, yields about as much nutritious food 

 as any other plant known. I asked some 

 questions about the fertilizer used, and I be- 

 lieve it is mostly stable manure. The decay 

 of the old plant 

 furnishes so much 

 humus that the 

 ground is gener- 

 ally thickly cov- 

 ered with decay- 

 ing underbrush, 

 or what we might 

 call woods-dirt ; 

 but after all, when 

 we think of the 

 enormous weight 

 of fruit taken 

 away each season, 

 we realize that 

 fertility must be 

 furnished from 

 some source. In 

 the winter time 

 the high winds 

 whip the leaves 

 so as to split 

 them to pieces 

 and make the 

 plantation rather 

 unsightly. I once 

 had a banana in 

 a greenhouse, and 

 it was really " a 

 thing of beauty 

 and a joy " — till 

 I set it out on the 

 lawn, and a high 

 wind whipped its 

 beautiful glossy 

 leaves into un- 

 sightly carpet- 

 rags I do not 

 know of a prettier 

 thing for a lawn 

 than some of the 

 ornamental varie- 

 ties of the ba- 

 nana-plant ; but 

 one ought to have 

 some arrange- 

 ment, say in the 

 form of a tent, to 

 set over it when 

 the winds are 

 boisterous. There 

 is another plant that looks very much like a 

 banana, only it is taller. The fruit looks and 

 tastes much the same, and many greatly pre- 

 fer it. I do not now remember the name of it. 

 I have before spoken of the papaya (or 

 melon) tree. It grows wild all over the isl- 

 and. I believe they are seldom cultivated. 



