84: NOTES ON THE AGRICULTURE, BOTANY 



plants brought from Formosa, where several kinds of Musa 

 are widely found in mountains. The cultivated local forms 

 come from Amoy and other Southern parts of China, where 

 are banana plantations. Among all local forms the common 

 fruitful banana tree, which was observed in Chinese econo- 

 mies, was not of a large size. The grown up tree with the 

 fruits are of 12-16 feet in height and have the leaves of 2.3-3.2 

 feet in breadth and the leaves with petioles of 8-10 feet in 

 length. The first year the young sprouts grow to a man's 

 height with the stalks in the lower part, 3-4 inches in 

 breadth. At the end of the second year the plants are nearly 

 of the size of a full grown tree with a trunk of 5-6 mm. 

 in diameter already surrounded with young plants. The 

 banana tree blooms in March and April in the third year, 

 but sometimes later; during the flowering, excessive flowers 

 are cut out and only about one hundred fruits are left, 

 which begin to ripen in October and November, after which 

 the dead tree is thrown down. Most fruits of this banana 

 tree are smaller than those' imported into Foochow from 

 South China and Formosa. The taste of local fruits is not 

 so delicate, more viscid and here they have no commercial 

 properties. This tree bears fruit yearly and it requires plant- 

 ing in lower places near the water and the cutting of the 

 excessive young plants, which are sometimes profuse. 



Another kind of banana tree, which is rarely observed in 

 Chinese villages is smaller and its fruits are bigger and better 

 in taste, but this plant has not been examined by me. It 

 comes also from the South. 



Among the non bearing fruit plantains, must be indi- 

 cated the forms of 15-18 feet in height but also there are 

 colossi of 7 inches in diameter and 27 feet in height. 



The local climatic conditions for the banana trees are 

 not the most favourable, but nevertheless the warm and 

 long summer of this place is completely sufficient to the 

 maturation of the fruits. 



These plants chiefly suffer in winter here, when often 

 they lose the leaves, and generally in places not protected 

 from the sea winds. 



XXV. — A Study of the Eice Cultivated at Foochow. 



Foochow and its environs, being in south-east China, 

 has a population which is extensively a cultivator of 

 rice, which here represents the principal food. In the 

 report of Mr. G. Philipps published in 1888 are given the 

 conditions of agriculture near Foochow; as well as the 

 question of the quantity of land holdings by the farmers : 



