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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 as material 
for thatching, mats and baskets, and an endless variety of articles 
of everyday use. 
It 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. Pro- 
tection from the withering blasts of high winds is essential, and if 
properly protected, it can be grown quite near to the sea coast 
in an atmosphere charged with salt. From long propagation from 
offsets or suckers, seed has almost entirely diseppeared from the 
fruit, although, at 1imes, a few are found which are capable of 
giving rise to new varieties. 
The suckers used for planting should be about a couple of feet 
long, and four or five months old. When smaller they are delicate; 
when longer they do not root so easily. As many fibrous roots as 
possible should be secured when cutting them off the parent plant. 
In a little over a year’s time, in favourable localities, the first stem 
flowers and bears a bunch of fruit, which takes four or five months 
to develop. That first bunch is, as a rule, not so fine as that from 
the second sucker and the few which succeed it. After a few years 
the ground becomes impoverished, and needs stirring up and manur- 
ing. Complete chemical fertilisers, particularly rich in pot- 
ash, at the rate of 1%lbs. to 2lbs. per clump, can be 
applied. Under favourable circumstances a banana _plan- 
tation remains jrofitable for seven or eight years. Hach adult 
stem bears one bunch, which consists of a long stalk with fron:ls 
consisting of ten to fifteen hands spirally arranged round it; each 
hand eight to twelve bananas or more. The bunches, according to 
variety and size, weigh from 10 to 60 lbs. each and over. All ban- 
ana trees are good bee plants. 
Bananas are great exhausters of the soil. They reyuire rich, 
moist soil. As the eating varieties do not secd, nature provides them 
with numerous suckers. In some places these suckers are grown at 
intervals of about 12ft. to 15ft. in trenches 2ft. or more deep and 
about 3ft. wide. This gives 200 to 300 holes to the acre. The larger 
growing bananas, such as the Sugar Banana, Lady’s Finger, Plan- 
tain, ete., require 20 to 25 feet apart each way, or 100 to 70 plants 
to the acre. 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 
