322 THE PLANTAIN AND BANANA. 



enclosure, growing the sugar cane, Indian corn, the Papaw tree, 

 mid the Musa a tropical garden! upon the elaborate culture 

 of which a whole family relied for subsistence. 



Although from the extensive plantain walks in our colonies 

 which are seldom cultivated with a garden-like care so large an 

 average proportion may not be obtained as twenty times the 

 production of wheat in Europe, yet I have had practical experience 

 of the prodigious quantity of farinaceous matter obtainable from 

 an acre of tolerably well-cultivated plantains, and no esculent plant 

 requires less labor in its culture upon laud suitable for its pro- 

 duction. They are readily increased by suckers, which the old 

 plants produce in abundance. 



Lindley enumerates ten species of Musa, some of which grow 

 to the height of 25 or 30 feet, but that valuable species M. Caven- 

 dishii, does not grow more than four or five feet high. 



The bananas of the family of the Musacese, appear to be natives 

 of the southern portion of the Asiatic continent (R. Brown, 

 "Bot. of Congo," p. 51). Transplanted at an unknown epoch into 

 the Indian Archipelago and Africa, they have spread also into the 

 New World, and in general into all intertropical countries, some- 

 times before the arrival of Europeans. 



According to Humboldt it affords, in a given extent of ground, 

 forty-four times more nutritive matter than the potato, and 133 

 times more than wheat. These figures must be considered as only 

 approximative, since nothing is more difficult than to estimate the 

 nutritive qualities of different aliments. 



Musa paradisiaca is cultivated in Syria, to latitude 34 deg. 

 Humboldt says it ceases to yield fruit at a height of 3,000 feet, 

 where the mean annual temperature is 68 deg., and where, pro- 

 bably, the heat of summer is deficient. 



The banana seems, however, to be found no higher than 4,600 

 feet in a state of perfection. 



No fruit is so easily cultivated as are the varieties of the plan- 

 tain. There is hardly a cottage in the tropics that is not partly 

 shaded by them ; and it is successfully grown under other fruit 

 trees, although it is independent of shelter. Its succulent roots 

 and dew-attracting leaves render it useful in keeping the ground 

 moist during the greatest heats. The plantain may be deemed 

 the most valuable of fruits, since it will, in some measure, supply 

 the place of grain in time of scarcity. To the negroes in the 

 "West Indian Islands the plantain is invaluable, and, like bread 

 to the Europeans, is with them denominated the staff of life. 

 In Jamaica, Demerara, Trinidad, and other principal colonies, many 

 thousand acres are planted with these trees. 



The vegetation of this tree is so rapid that if a line of thread 

 be drawn across, and on a level with the top of one of the leaves, 

 when it begins to expand, it will be seen, in the course of an hour, 

 to have grown nearly an inch. The fruit when ripe is of a pale 

 yellow, about a foot in length and two inches thick, and is pro- 

 duced in bunches so large as each to weigh 40 Ibs. and upwards. 



