The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1885-04-08
pTHE BANANA. ,
Extraordinary vitality OF This Tropical
Fruit.

NiNuhly VI AEOpACoh
Fruit.
Seedlings are absolutely distinct in
dividuals; they are the product OF the
pollen Of one plant and tho ovules Of
another, and they start afresh in life
with some chance Of being fairly free
from the hereditary taints or personal
failings Of either parent But cuttings
or suckers are only the same old plant
over and over again in fresh circum-
stances. transplanted, as it were, but
not truly renovated or reiuvenescent.
That is the real reason why our potatoes
are now all going lowell, the same
place as the army has been going every
since the earliest memories Of the Oldest
officers in the whole service. We have
gone on growing potatoes over and
over again from the tubers alone, and
hardly ever from seed, till the whole
constitution of the potato kind has be-
come permanently enfeebled by old age
and dotage. The eyes Gas farmers call
them) are only buds or underground
branches; and to plant potatoes as we
usually do is nothing more than to null
tiply the apparent scions by fission. Odd
as it may sound to say so, all the po-
tato vines in a whole field arc often,
from the strict biological point of view,
parts Of a single much-divided individ-
ual. 1t Is just as though one were to
60 on cutting up single worm, time
after time, as soon as he grew again,
till at last the one original creature had
multiplied into whole colony of APP
parently distinct individuals. Yet, II
the first worm happened to have the
gout or the rheumatism (metaphorically
speaking), all the other worms into
which his compound personality had
been divided would doubtless suffer
from the same complaints throughout
the whole OF their joint lifetimes.
The banana, however, has very long
resisted the inevitable tendency to de-
generation in plants thus artihcially
and unhealthy propagated. Potatoes
have only been in cultivation for few
hundred years; and yet.the potato con-
stitution has become so far enfeebled by
the practice of growing from the tuber
that the plants now fall an easy prey to
potato fungus, Colorado beetles, and a
thousand other persistent enemies. II
is Just the same with the vine-propa-
gated too long by layers or cuttings, its
health has failed entirely, and it can no
longer resist the ravages of the phyllox-
era or the slow attacks of the vine-dis.
ease fungus. But the banana, though
of very ancient and positively immemo-
rial antiquity as q cultivated plant,
seems somehow gifted with an extra
ordinary power OF holding its own in
spite Of long-continued unnatural prop
agation. For thousands of years it has
been grown in Asia in the seedless con-
dtion, and yet 1t springs as heartily as
ever still from the underground suckers.
Nevertheless. there must in the end be
some natural limit to this wonderful
power of reproduction, or rather long.
eyity; for, in the strictcst sense, the
banana bushes that now grow in the
negro gardens Of Trinidad and Deme-
rara, are part anu phTcel Oh the very
same plants which grew and bore fruit
thousand years ago in the native com
pounds of the Malay Archipelago
In fact, l think there can be but little
doubt that the banana is the very oldest
product of human tillage. Man, we
must remember, is essentially by origin
tropical animal, and wild tropical
fruits must necessarily have formed his
earliest food-stnfs. ltwas among them
Of course that bis first experiments in
primitive agriculture would be I ried
the little Insignificant seeds and berries
of cold Northern regions would only
very slowly be added to his limited
stock in husbandry, as circumstances
pushed some few outlying colonies north
ward and ever northward toward the
chillior unoecupied regions. Now. Of
all tropical fruits, the banana iscertainly
the one that best repays cultivation. II
has been calculated that the same area
which will produce thirty-three pounds
of wheat or ninety-nine pounds Of pota-
toes will produce 4,400 pounds of plan
tains or bananas. - CorRhiH Magazine,