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AGRICULTURE IN “1829. 53 
expense of labour, that it may almost be reckoned. spon- 
taneous. There are two: varieties, the black and the 
white, the former having a purple stem and the latter 
a pale browm one, being also rather taller, but there is 
hardly: any perceptible difference in the appearance or 
quality. of the fruit.: 
The white plantain is called by the natives the creole - 
plantain, and is reported to be indigenous, but neither 
of the kinds produce seed, fruétifying and ripening in 
the utmost perfe€tion. The pericarpium is only filled 
with a number of black grains, totally abortive. It is 
supposed that the male plantain has never been intro- 
duced, and that the one now grown is only the female, 
which, when impregnated by the male, produces a num- 
ber of hard black seeds very inconvenient in the masti- 
cation, and which has been the reason of the total 
eradication of the male plant. 
The plantain, in common with all broad palm-leaved 
plants, delights in moisture, both of soil and atmosphere. 
It must, however, be well drained in the rainy season, | 
though sparingly so in the dry. A succession of un- 
usually dry seasons and the extension of the sugar 
cultivation, which has denuded the plains of the Coast 
and destroyed those sheltering belts of trees that 
formerly proteéted the plantains from cold and high 
winds, with other minor and co-operating causes, have 
latterly introduced a kind of epidemic amongst the 
plantains which has filled the colony with well-founded 
alarm, Hundreds of acres in the most flourishing con- 
dition have sunk in a few weeks, as if fire or the wave 
had gone through them, and this without any distinétion 
of soil, circumstances or situation. 
