460 



THE PLANTAIN AND BANANA. 



cultivated it extensively in the neighboiirliood of Armenia. The 

 eastern parts of Portugal, whose marine and equal climate is singu- 

 larly favourable to the naturalisation of tropical plants, enumerate 

 even the Musa sapientum among their garden productions. The Musa 

 Cavendishii and Musa sinensis have also been successfully introduced 

 into that country. Equatorial America has immense resources in the 

 banana ; Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Upper and Lower Peru, 

 Brazil, the Guianas, and the Antilles, more especially Haiti and 

 Cuba, cultivate this plant on a vast scale. The banana exists still in 

 Louisiana, Florida, and the other Southern States, where efforts have 

 been made for some time to extend its cultivation. 



A warm and rather moist soil is best suited to the propagation of 

 the banana, that is to say, a soil in which there is a plentiful admix- 

 ture of clay, as in the immense valleys of America and Asia, and in 

 the grassy plains of Malaysia. It seems to like the neighbourhood 

 of the sea, and an atmosphere impregnated with salt, for it is in that 

 kind of situation that it appears to prosper best. In Egypt it grows 

 well in the nitrous plains of Eosetta. In the majority of countries 

 where the plantain is grown no manure is necessary, owing to the 

 decomposition of the stems and the alluvial nature of the soil. But 

 in other less favourable soils manure may be requisite to maintain a 

 vigorous and constant production. A plantain walk is usually 

 established a little before the rainy season commences. The soil is 

 loosened to a foot or less, so as to receive the young plants. It is 

 thoroughly cleansed of all weeds and stones which may be there. 

 Then shoots or suckers are taken from the parent stem, of from two 

 to three feet high, their bulbs being divided from the principal bulb 

 by means of a mattock. These slips are cut about eight inches above 

 the neck, and placed" in a slanting direction in the prepared holes, and 

 covered with earth, leaving in sight only about two inches. The 

 length of time which elapses between the planting of the slips and 

 their fruiting depends on climate, situation, and variety of species. 

 Thus Musa sapientum fruits in the fifth and sixth month, whilst the 

 Musa par adisiaca requires ten months, and sometimes even a longer 

 time than that. Two varieties of the fig banana, the canaya and gengi, 

 produce their fruit in five months. In mountain districts, the fruit 

 of the large banana ripens only at the end of eighteen or twenty 

 months of cultivation ; some varieties ■ indeed, in such position, take 

 three years to produce fruit. The leaves of the banana afford a 

 useful shelter, and it is therefore of great service in tropical agricul- 

 ture to young plants, which would otherwise suffer severely from the 

 excessive heat of the sun. 



In British Guiana, the plantains are set six yards apart, and yams, 

 maize, cocos or canes planted in the intervals. 



The cultivation of the plantain is one of the easiest to undertake, - 

 and at the same time one of the most profitable ; when once it has 

 been planted, there is nothing more to do except realize the harvest, 

 for the trifle of manure bestowed upon the soil two or three times a 

 year is nothing in comparison with the labour necessary in Europe 

 to bring crops to perfection. As these plants renew themselves with 

 offshoots at different degrees of development, it follows that each 

 plantation offers at the same time rows whose branches are laden 



