Agricultural and Commercial Society. 59 
power of the land under his treatment will remain 
dormant in it. 
It is interesting to follow the procedure in connection 
with the planting of provisions. Plantains, the most 
generally used of all our vegetable products, are the least 
fastidious as regards selection of soil. They are planted 
too with such simplicity that a child may well undertake 
the duty. The sucker is merely placed in a hole prepared 
for its reception, the only care needed being the depth of 
the hole and the distance left between each individual 
plant. Some farmers, either from ignorance or care- 
lessness, give the suckers very little depth beneath the 
surface, with the result that when the tree develops, not 
having a sufficient anchorage in the earth, it falls before 
the first heavy gust of wind that blows over it. The 
farmer, so often referred to in this paper, has learnt 
by experience that a space of not less than 10 feet 
should intervene between the suckers, so that when the 
spreading leaves seek to unfold themselves fully to 
absorb the sunlight, they will not be cramped and 
curved for want of room. When, from the nearness of 
the trunk the leaves of adjacent trees overlap one 
another, the quality of the bunch is sure to be impaired. 
After the suckers have found a place in the soil, in about 
nine months, granted that the weather in the meantime 
is normal, the planter reaps his first crop. The second 
crop, produced from the suckers springing from the 
original plant takes a longer time (from 12 to 14 months) 
to present their fruit for reaping ; and each succeeding 
generation exceads its parent in weakness, until it 
behoves the farmer to replant the bed with fresh suckers. 
This process of degeneration is more pronounced if the 
H 2 
