78 PREPARATION OF PLANTAIN FIBRE. 
closely to yellowness or ripeness, otherwise it becomes im- 
possible to dry it. The colour of the meal is, moreover, injured, 
when steel knives are used in husking or slicing; but nickel 
blades or Bamboo slicers would not injure the colour, Ona 
large scale, some single machine might be adapted to the 
husking and slicing processes, and the mode tried by which arrow- 
root is obtained, by scraping and suspension in cold water. 
It is calculated that the fresh core will yield forty per cent. 
of dry meal, and that 51b. may be obtained from an average 
bunch of 25 lb. weight ; and an acre of Plantain walk of average 
quality, producing even during the year 450 such bunches, would 
yield upwards of a ton of meal, the value of which must of 
course vary in different countries according to the price of 
other articles of food. In the West Indies it is largely em- 
ployed as the food of infants, children, and convalescents. In 
point of nutritious value, we have seen that the fruit approaches 
the potato, and the meal to that of rice. There can be no doubt, 
therefore, of the value of this meal, and of the benefit of 
preparing it, wherever the fruit is preserved in larger quanti- 
ties than it can be consumed. 
Preparation of the Fibre-—The Plantain has been stated to 
abound in fibre—indeed, almost every part of the plant may be 
said to be available for this product. It is related, that from 
the upper part of these spurious stems, spiral vessels may be 
pulled out in handfuls, and are used as tinder in the West 
Tndies. De Candolle has described them as consisting, in Musa, 
of seven distinct fibres lying parallel, formed into bands; and 
La Chesnaye of upwards of twenty, arranged in a spiral manner. 
M. Mohl describes the secondary cell-membrane as divided into 
as many as twenty parallel spiral fibres. But these are not 
the fibres which are separated for economic purposes, nor are 
they situated on the same side of the vegetable structure. 
For instance, if we take any separate layer of the Plantain 
stem—that is, a part of the sheathing footstalk of a leaf—we 
may observe on its outer side a layer of strong longitudinal 
fibres, which form a kind of framework or ribs for the support 
of the structure, which is cellular on its inside. It is on this 
side that spiral vessels are placed, and next the pith in exoge- 
nous plants. They are abundant in the peduncle, or core, as 
it is often called, of the Musa. 
