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There are several varieties of the Banana cultivated in the 

 Deccan, the large red, the green, and the yellow. A small 

 sort, which is supposed to be the real Banana of the West 

 Indies, is perhaps the most luxuriant of the whole. The plants 

 blossom at all seasons, and as soon as the drupe of fruit begins 

 to ripen, which is known by some turning colour, it is cut and 

 hung up to ripen in the house. The plant will not bear again, 

 and may be cut down (otherwise it will perish of itself,) when 

 the surrounding shoots grow up and blossom as the former. 

 The plants are generally grown in beds or clusters in a good 

 rich soil, when fine fruit is almost the sure return. In trans- 

 planting the shoots, if two or three feet high, about one half is 

 generally cut off. 



MTRISTICA MOSCHATA. Myristicacece. NAT. JAYPHUL. This 

 tree has been introduced from the Eastward. The fruit ripens in 

 the rains : it is the size of a large plum, with a green covering, 

 and upon being ripened, discovers a net-work of a dark red 

 colour surrounding the nut, which has a most beautiful ap- 

 pearance : this is the spice known as mace. 



"The first care of the cultivator is to select ripe nuts and to 

 set them at the distance of a foot apart in a rich soil, merely 

 covering them very lightly with mould. They are to be pro- 

 tected from the heat of the sun, occasionally weeded, and 

 watered in dry weather every other day. The seedlings may be 

 expected to appear in from thirty to sixty days, and when four 

 feet high, the healthiest and most luxuriant, consisting of three 

 or four verticles, are to be removed in the commencement of 

 the rains to the plantation, previously cleared of trees and 

 underwood by grubbing and burning their roots, and placed in 

 holes dug for their reception at the distance of eighty feet from 

 each other, screening them from the heat of the sun, and 

 violence of the winds. They must be watered every other day 

 in sultry weather ; manured once a year during the rains, and 

 protected from the sun until they obtain the age of five years. 

 The nutmeg tree is moneocious as well as dioecious but no 

 means of discovering the sexes, before the period of inflores- 

 cence, is known. Upon an average, the nutmeg tree fruits at 



