BANANA. This noble plant is a native of the East Indies but now cultivated in all warm countries. It is the most prolific vegetable known. Thirty to forty plants will grow in a space of forty feet square. It is a kind of palm which reaches 15 to 20 feet in height with a cluster of leaves spreading out at the top, each leaf being about six feet long by two feet wide. The flow ers are pink, an immense and drooping spike of them appearing in May and June among the leaves. The upper flowers die un productive ; the lower ones rapidly change into oblong-shaped fruit, some bunches containing as high as 160, each as large as a cucumber and resembling it in color and shape. This fruit is filled with a sweet nutritious custard-like juice, and is eaten raw, boiled, baked and cooked in various ways. It is preserved with sugar, and with vinegar ; is used as bread ; and when pressed and fer mented yields a spirituous drink resembling cider. The sap also makes an excellent wine. In truth this fruit and the plantain which it closely resembles are amongst the richest gifts of Provi dence to the inhabitants of the tropical countries: It needs very little cultivation : all that is necessary being to remove any suckers the old trees throw up, and plant them at requisite distance.
They then grow rapidly, bear fruit in ten or eleven months, and afterwards continue to yield a fresh crop every six months for many years, which without care except the loosing of ' earth around the roots once every season. Bananas are routpl. yellowcr and of more agreeable flavor than the plantain. They are generally brought to our markets in a partly green state and ripened in dark well heated rooms. They are easily fro= and in cold weather are packed very carefully before shipping but are always sent at the risk of the party ordering. 'Warner and Merritt of Philadelphia are headquarters of tlie U. S. for this fruit. See full page cut of the Banana plant and fruit.