aeus be right in his conjecture (Spec. Plant, 1763) that
the "Bihai" (_Heliconia humilis_), a native of Caraccas, which
produces fertile seeds, is the stock plant of the plantain, it is
almost impossible to ascertain; but the absence of any description of
a wild seed-bearing plantain, renders it highly probable that the
cultivated species are hybrids produced long ago. The banana, from
time immemorial, has been the food of the philosophers and sages of
the East, and almost all travellers throughout the tropics have
described these plants exactly as they are known to us, either as
sweet fruit eaten raw, or a farinaceous vegetable roasted or boiled.
It is remarkable that the plantain and banana should be indigenous, or
at all events cultivated for ages both in the Old and New World.
Numerous South American travellers describe some one of these plants
as being indigenous articles of food among the natives, thus showing
(if the plantain and its varieties be hybrids) a communication between
the tropics of America, Asia and Africa, long before the time of
Columbus. The older writers on the colony of Guiana, as Hartsinck,
Bellin and others, consider the plantain to be a native. It is
remarkable that Sir R. Schomburgk, during his travels, found a large
species of edible plantain far in the interior. It appears, therefore,
from all the investigations that have been made, that the plantain is
either a hybrid, or its power of production from seed has been
destroyed long ago by cultivation, and that it is not known to exist
anywhere in a perfect state; in which case any attempt to improve the
present stock by the introduction of suckers from elsewhere, must be
totally futile. Mr. A. Garnett recommends the following system of
cultivation, as calculated to prevent the blight. The walk or
plantation is to be formed into beds 36 feet wide, divided by open
drains 30 inches deep. Two rows of plantains to be planted upon each
bed at 18 feet distance, both between and along the rows, to afford a
clear ventilation to the enlarging plants, and so soon as the
plantation has been established, the space of land between each row to
be shovel-ploughed 12 inches deep; the same to be repeated annually,
and upon the interspace may be planted maize, yams, sugar cane, or
eddoes, and the whole kept clear at all times. Thus, with the
conjoined principles of good tillage, free ventilation, and mixed
crops, the blight may yet be successfully combated.

A