FRUITS OF QUEENSLAND. 29 



maintained by judicious green and other manuring. In newly burnt off scrub 

 land all that is necessary is, to dig holes 15 to 18 inches in diameter, and about 

 2 feet deep, set the young plants in it, and partly fill in the hole with good top 

 soil. The young plant, which consists of a sucker taken from an older plant, 

 will soon take root and grow rapidly under favourable conditions, producing its 

 first bunch in from ten to twelve months after planting. At the same time that 

 it is producing its first bunch it will send up two or more suckers at the base of 

 the parent plant, and these in turn will bear fruit, and so on. After bearing, 

 the stalk that has produced the bunch of fruit is cut down; if this is not done 

 it will die down, as its work has been completed, and other suckers take its 

 place. Too many suckers should not be allowed to grow or the plants will 

 become too crowded, and be consequently stunted and produce small bunches. 

 All the cultivation that is necessary is the keeping down of weed growth, and 

 this, once the plants occupy the whole of the land, is not a hard matter. A 

 plantation is at its best when about three years old, but remains profitable 

 for six years or longer; in fact, there are many plantations still bearing good 

 fruit that have been planted from twelve to twenty years. Small-prrowing or 

 dwarf kinds, such as the Cavendish variety, are planted at from 12 to 16 feet 

 apart each way, but large-growing bananas, such as the Sugar and Lady's 

 Finger, require from 20 to 25 feet apart each way, as do the stronger-growing 

 varieties of plantain. Plantains are not grown to any extent in Queensland, 

 and our principal varieties are those already mentioned, the Cavendish variety 

 greatly predominating. In the North, the cultivation of this latter variety is 

 carried out on an extensive scale, principally by Chinese gardeners, who send 

 the bulk of their produce to the Southern States of the Commonwealth. The 

 industry supports a large number of persons other than the actual producers 

 of the fruit, and forms one of our principal articles of export from the North. 

 As many as 20,000 or more large bunches of bananas frequently leave by a 

 single steamer for the South, and the bringing of this quantity to the port of 

 shipment gives employment to a number of men on tram lines and small 

 coastal steamers. The shipment of a heavy cargo of bananas presents a very 

 busy scene that is not soon forgotten, the thousands of bunches of fruit that are 

 either piled up on the wharf or that are being unloaded from railway trucks, 

 small steamers or sometimes Chinese junks, forming such a mass of fruit that 

 one often wonders how it is possible to consume it all before it becomes over- 

 ripe. Still, it is consumed, or, at any rate, the greater portion of it is, as it is 

 the universal fruit of the less wealthy portion of the community, the price at 

 which it can be sold being so low that it is within the reach of everyone. A 

 banana garden in full bearing J^s a very pretty sight, the thousands of plants, 

 each with their one or more bunches of fruit, as, where there are several stems 

 it is not at all uncommon to find two or more bunches of fruit in different 

 states of development on the same plant, forming a mass of vegetation that 

 must be seen to be appreciated. This is the case even with dwarf-growing 

 kinds, but with strong-growing varieties, such as the Lady's Finger, the 

 growth is so excessive that the wonder is, how the soil can support it. 



Bananas do remarkably well in Queensland, and there is practically an 

 unlimited area of country suitable for their culture, much of which is at present 



