CHAPTER XXIX 



GENERAL REVIEW OF CULTIVATION continued 

 SOUTH AMERICA 



BRAZIL. Many varieties of bananas or plantains are culti- 

 vated in Brazil, and there is an export trade to Buenos 

 Ayres. The bananas which are most commonly cultivated 

 are the " Catura " (the Chinese banana) and the " Massao " 

 or "Maga," a variety of Musa sapientum. It would be 

 worth while to get suckers of this banana from Brazil and 

 investigate its merits by growing it at experiment stations. 



The following account of the cultivation of the Catura 

 and Massao bananas in the State of Parana is written by 

 M. Paszkiewicz for the Journal (T Agriculture tropiccde and 

 translated by Dr. J. Neish : * 



" The Parana is a district of Southern Brazil. Sugar- 

 cane and bananas are the objects of cultivation. It is the 

 small or Chinese banana which is generally cultivated. 

 The natives call it the Catura. This sort is known to be 

 the least exhaustive of soils, but yet a bananery in the 

 Parana with reputedly rich and good soil shows signs of 

 exhaustion in the course of eight years. A clearing is 

 made, and the felled timber is chopped up and left on the 

 ground. Two months of dry weather suffice to dry it, and 

 it is then burnt. Many stumps remain in the ground and 

 the heavy logs also remain, but as the cultivation is all by 

 hand labour, these impediments do not much interfere. 

 The soil has no need of further preparation. Small holes 

 are made with the mattock about twelve feet distant, in 



* Journ. Jam. Agric. Soc., ix. (1905). 

 218 



