the fruit has fully developed, other shoots have appeared; but each plant bears but one bunch, and when that is removed the plant is decapitated and slowly decays, and the second and third and fourth shoots from the rhizome successively arrive at the bearing stage and are permitted to mature each its bunch and then fated to suffer immediate decapitation.  And so the process goes on for five or seven years, by which time the vigour of the soil has been exhausted, and moreover the rhizomes, originally planted about a foot deep, have grown up to the surface, and are no longer capable of supporting a plant upright.  Then a fresh planting of rhizomes elsewhere takes place.  It must not be thought that the banana defertilises the soil.  Phenomenal crops of sugar cane are produced on a “banana-sick” land.

A traveller relating his tropical experiences glorifies the banana, stating that he has eaten it “ripe and luscious from the tree!” In North Queensland bananas ripening on the plant frequently split, and seldom attain perfect flavour.  The ripening process takes place after the fully developed bunch is removed and hung up in a cool, shady, well-aired locality.  Then the fruit acquires its true lusciousness and aroma.  Other climes, other results, perhaps; but a banana, “ripe and luscious from the tree,” is not generally expected in North Queensland.  The fruit may mature until it falls to the ground, yellow and soft, yet lack that delicate finish, that benign essential, the craft of man bestows.  It would seem that the plant has been cultivated for so long a period that it has become dependent upon man not only for its existence but for the excellence of its crowning effort.  An abandoned banana grove soon disappears, for although seeds are undoubtedly produced, the occasions are so rare that the reproduction of the cultivated varieties depends solely upon the rhizome, and these very speedily deteriorate if neglected.  Another feature of the banana, of which man takes full advantage, is that though the bunch be removed before the fruit is matured as to size, the ripening process proceeds, just as though there had been no untimely interference.  The bananas may be small, but will, as a rule, be almost as sweetly flavoured as those allowed to develop on the plant.  Yet the superfine aesthetic essence is not for the delight of those to whom the fruit is tendered after it has undergone a sea voyage.  Let there be no misunderstanding with respect to the desirableness of the coastal tract of North Queensland as a territory capable of supporting a large, prosperous and healthful population.  It is no part of the present purpose to extol the mineral or the pastoral districts.  They lie apart.  But in North Queensland agriculture is almost solely confined to the coast and is essentially tropical.  The tropics represent that portion of the earth’s surface wherein man may live with the minimum of exertion, where actual wants are few, and wherein ample comforts