70 PRESERVED PLANTAINS AND MEAL IN INDIA. 
when planted with wheat. As this is a point of great eco- 
nomical interest, it has been a subject of subsequent investiga- 
tion. The productiveness has been found to differ with the 
mean temperature of the place. Boussingault has given the 
following as the produce, per imperial acre, of the raw fruit in 
three places, according to Humboldt’s (1), Gondot’s (2), and 
his own observations (3) : 
Produce, Or of dry food, 
T e. perimperial acre. per acre. 
(1) In warm regions . 2 81} Fah, 72 tons. 193 tons. 
(2) At Cauca. . . 783 4, 59 16 =C« 
(3) At Hague. ‘ - 712 25 63 
Professor Johnston is the authority for the last column, 
or that of dry food per acre, as he had, from his analysis, 
obtained 27 per cent. of nutritive matter from the Banana. 
He justly observes, that all these quantities are very large, 
and show how easily life may be supported in tropical countries, 
And further, that as potatoes contain about one fourth their 
weight of dry nutritive matter, it would require a crop of 
twenty-seven tons of potatoes per imperial acre, to yield the 
smallest of the quantities above mentioned as the yield of an 
acre of Plantains; while only twenty to twenty-four tons of 
potatoes are obtained in favorable seasons and localities. 
Though it is not probable that the Plantain is cultivated in 
India with the care to enable the largest possible quantity of 
produce to be obtained, yet there is no doubt that the pro- 
duce is large and the culture most simple. It would be an 
interesting subject of experiment for the Agricultural Societies 
of India, to ascertain which are the most productive varieties ; 
whether the modes of cultivation adopted in that country have 
attained the highest limits of productiveness; and also to 
determine the best methods for preserving the fruit in different 
places ; and also, when superabundant, whether its meal might 
not be preserved for periods of scarcity, or for the season of 
the year when the fresh fruit is not procurable. In South 
America the fruit is not only used as an article of diet in its 
fresh state, but, when dried, forms an article of internal trade, 
besides having its flour separated, and cooked or made into 
biscuits. It is also preserved in the Society Islands. 
The preservation of the fruit and the preparation of the 
meal has already been introduced into India. Some Plantain 
