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The Avocado Pear thrives as well beyond the tropics, and should 

 be an acquisition to the orchards from Sharks Bay northward. It is 

 easily grown from seeds or from young cuttings. It requires moist 

 soil, and is unsuited for droughty localities. When marketing it 

 should be picked before it becomes soft, and should be carefully 

 packed, when it ripens in a week or 10 days after gathering. 



BANANA and PLANTAIN (Musa sp.) 



Hitherto Western Australia has been drawing supplies of this 

 fruit from Fiji and Queensland. On account of the protracted time 

 required in shipping them, from the extreme East to the West coast 

 of Australia, the fruit we receive is of very indifferent quality. It 

 has to be picked before it is fully developed and when quite green, 

 and it therefore ripens in an artificial manner in the crates used by 

 the shippers. During the year 1902 over 17,000 crates of bananas 

 were imported, mostly from Queensland and from Fiji. These, at 

 an average value of 20s. to 24s., represent for our then population 

 of 212,000 people a considerable sum for this article of food alone. 

 Bananas are introduced in our market during the winter and spring 

 months when all fruits are scarce, and there is no reason to doubt 

 that considerably larger quantities would readily be consumed if 

 better fruit grown nearer our own market was obtainable, more 

 especially if sold at a lower price. 



The Banana may be said to be one of the most useful produc- 

 tions of the vegetable world. Its fruit, either in the green or the 

 ripe state, is highly nutritious ; its stem yields a valuable fibre, and 

 it affords, in tropical climates, a protecting shade as well also as 

 material for thatching, mats and baskets, and an endless variety of 

 articles of everyday use. 



Bananas are great exhausters of the soil. They require rich, 

 moist soil. As the eating varieties do not seed, nature provides them 

 with numerous suckers. In some places these suckers are grown at 

 intervals of about 12ft. to 15ft. in trenches 1ft. or more deep and 

 about 3ft. wide. Every now and again a good dressing of cow-dung 

 and a copious watering is given, and for that purpose the trench 

 system is very suitable. Where the soil is naturally very rich and 

 moist the trenches are dispensed with. Three or four stems are 

 left to each clump, and all the other suckers are cut off with a sharp 

 spade and either removed for planting or left to rot on the ground, 

 together with the chopped up stems which have just fruited. This 

 form of mulching keeps the ground cool and checks the growth of 

 the weeds. 



The banana is essentially a hot climate plant. In some 

 sheltered and favoured parts of the more temperate zone it may be 

 made to grow and even fruit, but the plant never attains the 

 luxuriant growth, nor is it as fruitful as within the more congenial 

 tropical regions. Protection from the withering blasts of high 

 winds is essential, and if properly protected they can be grown 

 quite near to the sea coast in an atmosphere charged with salt. 

 The suckers used for planting should be about a couple of feet 



