FRUIT TREES WITH PROLIFIC YIELDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19258, 20 December 1930, Page 31 (Supplement)

FRUIT TREES WITH PROLIFIC YIELDS.

The most prolific of all fruits of the earth is the banana. Its produce is enormous; 1000 square feet planted with thirty or forty bananas wiil yield as many clusters, with 160 to 180 fruits on each, each cluster weighing from 401 b to 801 b, so that 1000 square feet will produce 40001 b of nutritive substance. The same space would in Europe grow only 331 b of wheat, or 991 b of potatoes. The produce of the banana is, therefore, to wheat as 133 to 1, and to the potato as 44 to 1. It is not so nourishing as wheat, but an acre of bananas will support twentyfive times a? many people as an acre of wheat. The sweet orange, too, is

wonderfully productive. One tree at St Michael’s in the Azores was known to bear 20,000 oranges in one year, besides from 4000 to 5000 thrown away as unmarketable. The coco palm will annually yield as much as a ton weight of nuts: and the date palm will, 1 when in full bearing, produce a yearly crop of from one to four cwt,