Fruits of Cuba. 
s off, and the next in order rises up, with a similar 
. TOW of young fruit, over which it stands in the same 
“watchful attitude, till it also drops off, to be succeeded 
by another. When one circle of fruit is completed, 
another is commenced below, and in due time another ; 
while the common stem around which the fruit is dis- 
posed, grows constantly longer, and the cone of spathes 
is constantly diminishing in size, till ‘it is all unfolded, 
and a monstrous bunch of bananas is finished, which 
seldom weighs less than twenty or thirty, and sometimes 
as much as seventy or eighty pounds. 
Of all kinds of vegetable nutriment the. banana is - 
perhaps the most productive and most: easily raised. 
After a plant has produced its bunch of fruit, the stem 
is either cut, or is suffered to wither and fall on the 
spot. In the former case, it is good fodder. for cattle; 
in the latter, it is good manure for the young shoots 
which. have been springing from the root, and which 
are soon ready to bear fruit in their turn. From these 
shoots or sprouts the plant is propagated. 
‘There are several varieties both of the Plantain and 
the Banana. The Banana which comes from Tahiti, 
is among the very best. The East India name for the 
genus is Pisang. 
This fruit is not forgotten by. easier: 
Auer whélésome nutriment bananas yield, 
. And sunburnt labor loves its breezy shade. ; 
"Their procefal screen let kindred plantanes p ; 
And with their broad vans shiver in the breez 
PassrrLoRa. The seed ves of several species of 
the Passiflòra or Passion-flower, are palatable fruits in 
