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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bananas, by Edward Wilkin Perry
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Bananas
-       Nature's Institution for the Promotion of Laziness
-
-Author: Edward Wilkin Perry
-
-Release Date: October 10, 2017 [EBook #55729]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BANANAS ***
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-
-Produced by Cindy Horton, Turgut Dincer, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
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-
-  BANANAS
-
-  NATURE’S INSTITUTION FOR THE PROMOTION
-  OF LAZINESS
-
-
-  BY EDWARD W. PERRY
-
-
-  COPYRIGHTED
-
-  1903
-
-  BY HARRY WILKIN PERRY
-
-
-
-
-REVISED EDITION
-
-
-NOTE
-
-The chapter given in the following pages is from a work entitled:
-“TROPICAL AMERICA: ITS PLANTERS AND PLANTATIONS,” now in preparation.
-_Sports Afield_ said of the author: “Probably no American is more
-competent to write of the country life than is this author, who,
-because of his long-trained habits of observation, careful search for
-the bottom facts and weighing of details, of deducing therefrom the
-essentials and presenting them clearly and concisely, has made the best
-possible use of his time and experience.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-  NATURE’S INSTITUTION FOR THE PROMOTION OF LAZINESS. BANANAS: WHAT
-    THEY ARE, HOW THEY GROW, WHAT THEY COST, AND WHAT THEY GIVE TO
-    MAN.
-
-
-Long before the dawn of history in the Old World, mayhap long before
-that Old World arose from the waters, man lived on the fruit of the
-_Musas_. There are those who would tell you that the banana is the
-fruit which tempted Eve, to the downfall of Adam; and that evidence
-of the truth of this may be found in the fact that if one will cut
-across a banana, of the right kind, he may find in its heart the sign
-of the cross; and in the other fact that men of learning have given to
-a banana the name of _Musa paradisiaca_, which being interpreted means
-the Fruit of paradise, and to another banana they have given the name
-_Musa sapientum_, which the sapient know means the Fruit of knowledge.
-Less evidence has served well enough to burn heretics at the stake.
-
-[Illustration: A BUNCH OF BANANAS]
-
-Man has carried this gigantic herb to every fertile spot in a belt that
-girdles the waist of the globe--a girdle that is four thousand miles
-and more in width. Millions uncounted have looked to it for the chief
-of their diet, as other millions have looked to the cereals. And to
-this hour puling babes and doddering ancients are fed with the fruit in
-all its stages and conditions, green or over-ripe, raw or roasted,
-baked or fried, liquid or dried. At least forty species of the _Musas_
-are known and described, and of these there are several sub-varieties.
-They have been classed by Dr. Sagot into three groups, as follows:
-
- Giant bananas, of which _M. ensete_ is the type. In this group no
- suckers are formed. Fruit leathery and not edible, with few seeds.
-
- Fleshy-fruited bananas; _M. sapientum_ the type. Stem produces
- suckers; spike long and decurved; fruit fleshy and usually eatable.
-
- Ornamental bananas. Spike often erect, not pendant; bracts persistent,
- brightly colored, each with a few flowers on its axil; suckers many;
- fruit leathery. _M. rosacea_ furnish familiar examples of this group.
-
-When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the single
-man of the tropics to take unto himself a helpmeet for him, and to
-provide for other events likely to come after, he selects some fertile
-spot, usually on the border of waters over which his canoe may easily
-carry the bulky harvests he will have; and there he cuts down tree and
-vine, bush and bamboo, and lets them lie as they fall in tangled mass.
-Every day the ardent sun helps the constant wind to shrivel leaf and
-twig until, one day, the windward edge of that snarl is touched by the
-torch, and in a moment a blazing hades is where a cool and shady grove
-will soon rustle in the breeze.
-
-When the last flame has flickered out and coals lie dead beneath their
-gray shroud, women paddle to that place with canoes laden with banana
-sprouts. With machetes they dig little pits amid charred stumps and
-trunks and branches, and in each hole they set a sprout. Then they
-go away to wait, and rest; and the sun shines warmly down into that
-clearing, breezes sift a gray veil of ashes over the wilted suckers
-that look like black and ragged stakes; and at last come showers which
-wash them clean.
-
-Those stakes are made up of sheathes of leaves tightly rolled one
-around another, the inner ones narrow, cream-colored and tender; those
-nearer the outer ones wider and yet wider, until the outer one is
-reached. The outer one covers nearly or quite three-fourths of the
-stem. When the warm rains fall, the tender leaves unroll and spread to
-their widest, and the sun dries and the wind whips them until soon they
-are split into narrow ribbons; and a few weeks after that planting a
-sea of giant leaves waves and whispers in the breeze--a roof of bright
-and tender green covering the moist, black ground.
-
-Not before the plant has grown to a height of ten to twenty, and in
-some places to thirty feet, does the flower-stem begin pushing its
-way up from the base through the middle of the stalk. In a short time
-it sends out at the top one or more leaves, smaller than their older
-fellows, as a signal that flower and fruit will quickly follow. Soon
-every supporting column of those graceful arches ends in a cone of
-red that deepens into purple and swells until its outer petals are
-crowded off by the fatness of the fruit they hide, that these may have
-air and light. Under those petals the baby bananas are packed close,
-like fingers tightly gripping the parent stem. These closed ranks,
-each separate hand or whorl reaching half way around the stalk, grow
-so quickly that in six or eight weeks the bunch weighs fifty pounds or
-more.
-
-To most people of northern climes bananas are merely--bananas. For
-such folk know as little of the many varieties of bananas as they know
-of the many and varied uses of that fruit. Perchance that is why they
-fry the common yellow guineo which comes by millions of bunches each
-year to the United States, and then wonder that folk who have dwelt
-in the tropics, and who extol fried bananas, show nevertheless that
-they cannot like the mushy, cloying mess set before them here. He
-who grows bananas, and she who cooks them for him, select for frying
-that thick-bodied, hard-fleshed and rather tart fruit which they call
-plátano, and which is by blundering English-speaking tongues misnamed
-plantain. And even among the plátanos there is room for choosing, for
-there are of them several varieties. Best of these is that little
-one which bears, on the Mosquito Shore whence good bananas come, the
-Spanish name “miel,” or honey, coupled with the Waika word “silpe,” or
-little. The name “maiden” plátano also is given to the “little honey,”
-most fittingly, for it has just enough of piquant tartness to give
-unfailing relish, yet is tender, plump and mighty comforting withal,
-upon occasion.
-
-If he is so lucky as to live near a port where steamships stop, the
-planter may sell his plátanos for a cent or even two cents for each
-finger or fruit; and as the plants may be set only eight or ten feet
-apart, and each will mature a bunch of thirty to fifty fingers every
-nine months, it is clear that he who has an acre of plátanos may have
-a tidy income of food or of cash. Usually the planter prefers to eat
-this food, for which reason people in the North have few opportunities
-for learning the superior virtues of the fruit. The planter is quite
-right, for the plátano is the one banana fit to be cooked; and is by no
-means bad to eat raw.
-
-Sometimes a planter may leave a bunch of bananas to ripen on the
-standing stalk, but that will rarely be, for the fruit so ripened is
-strong in flavor, dry and too soft to bear transportation; its skin
-splits, and ants, bees and other insects gather about the exposed
-flesh. Therefore the women lug home green bunches and hang them in the
-house to ripen, where everybody who has the right--and that is every
-visitor, every member of the family and every passing acquaintance--may
-pluck and eat as the fruit turns yellow and becomes tender. Meanwhile
-many of the fruits will have been taken from the bunch, peeled and
-broken into bits, to be boiled with beef or pork, or flesh of the deer,
-peccary or other game.
-
-Another sub-variety of plátanos bears, in Mosquitia, the name of
-“butuco,” perhaps from the name of the River Patuca--or maybe the river
-has taken its name from the banana. The butuco is perhaps rather more
-tart than the miel silpe, and when fried reminds one of fried greening
-apples, and when stewed has somewhat of the flavor of stewed peaches.
-In either way it is most agreeable to the taste. There are other
-plátanos, also, most of them giants among bananas, many being fifteen
-or more inches long and some two or three inches in diameter. These are
-firm in flesh, resist decay much longer than do the common guineos, and
-will, therefore, much better bear transportation. They should become
-known to the millions of northern lands, for they would afford a vast
-supply of food much more convenient and palatable than, and equal in
-value to, potatoes.
-
-Prof. Wynter Blythe, of London, is an analyst who tells us that the
-relative values of bananas and sago, corn meal and wheat flour are as
-follows:
-
-  =========================+=========+===========+=========+============
-        Constituents       |  Banana |   Sago    |Corn Meal|Wheat Flour
-  -------------------------+---------+-----------+---------+------------
-                           |Per Cent.| Per Cent. |Per Cent.| Per Cent.
-  Water                    |  8.05   |   13.00   |  11.09  |   15.08
-  Soluble albumen dextrine |  4.45   |           |         |
-  Starch                   | 82.57   |   78.06   |  85.30  |   81.60
-  Albumenoids              |  2.28   |    2.57   |   2.37  |    2.11
-  Fat                      |  0.77   |           |         |
-  Ash                      |  1.88   |    0.53   |   0.43  |    0.35
-  =========================+=========+===========+=========+============
-
-In a report on the constituents and food values of most articles
-in common use on northern tables, the United States Department of
-Agriculture gave, in the year 1903, very valuable figures which show
-that nineteen vegetables and ten varieties of fruits which make up the
-chief of our diet, have the following parts and values:
-
-  ======================+==========+========+=========
-         Elements       |Vegetables| Fruits | Bananas
-  ----------------------+----------+--------+---------
-  Carbohydrates, parts  |    8.9   |  11.1  |   14.3
-  Fats                  |    0.4   |   0.4  |    0.4
-  Protein               |    2.0   |   0.6  |    0.8
-  Ash                   |    0.9   |   0.5  |    0.6
-  Water                 |   73.0   |  64.3  |   48.9
-  Refuse                |   14.8   |  23.1  |   35.0
-  Fuel values           |  203.9   | 204.0  |  260.0
-  ======================+==========+========+=========
-
-This shows that while of valuable nutritive elements, the nineteen
-fresh vegetables have 11.3 parts and the ten varieties of succulent
-fruits have 12.1 parts, the bananas have 15.5 parts. From this it
-appears, also, that if the fresh fruits and vegetables were actually
-worth, as food, say $1.17, bananas of like weight would be worth 38
-cents more.
-
-[Illustration: HARD LABOR AMONG THE BANANAS]
-
-Statements made by other analysts seem to warrant the deduction that
-the nutritive value of a ton of potatoes, at one cent per pound, is 19
-cents more than that of a ton of bananas at the same price. There is a
-difference, too, in the cost of production of a ton of potatoes and the
-cost of raising a ton of bananas. The field for potatoes must be plowed
-and harrowed in the spring, the seed dropped in furrows, which are then
-to be covered, after which comes cultivating again and again until the
-time has come for digging and picking, carting, sacking and hauling,
-often to a distant market.
-
-Luckily for the millions who have depended so largely on the banana for
-sustenance, the plant has few, if any, insect enemies and diseases, in
-which they differ somewhat from some fruits and tubers of the North.
-
-Many times an assertion has been printed to the effect that Humboldt
-said that an acre of bananas yields forty-four times as much food as
-does an acre of wheat. In the year 1902 the average yield of wheat in
-the United States equalled 12.79 bushels, or 767.4 pounds. This had
-a food value equal to nearly one-third that of the average output of
-bananas from an acre. It is often said that one pound of bananas has
-as much nutrition as has a pound of beef. The truth is that one pound
-of beef is worth three and one-third pounds of bananas. Bananas are
-far enough ahead of the harvests the farmer of the North gets, without
-making exaggerated claims for the fruit of the tropics.
-
-So the planter of bananas has each year four and a half times as much
-palatable food from an acre as the farmer gets from his potatoes:
-and there is the further difference that the one has bananas at no
-other cost than that of keeping down bush and grass and vine, that
-would quickly cover every spot to which the sunshine could penetrate,
-along the edges of the plantation. For bananas yield year after year
-without replanting. Each new stalk springs from the foot of its parent,
-grows to a height of fifteen to thirty-five feet, bears its burden of
-luscious fruit, and dies; but not before it has sent up from its own
-root new stalks to fruit and die--and so on through the centuries.
-
-He who would grow bananas for market must plant on the border of
-navigable waters giving access to some harbor or anchorage where ships
-may safely lie while receiving the fruit. For it is easily bruised, and
-wetting by salt water blackens the skins, thus injuring or preventing
-the sale. Plantations are usually on the banks of rivers or of
-estuaries, but some are beside railroads, to which the fruit is carried
-by carts thickly carpeted with banana leaves. A cruder way is to hang a
-few bunches over the back of a burro or of a mule, which plods along to
-the shipping place.
-
-It is evident that the entire area which can so be devoted to banana
-culture must be small, for most Central American and Mexican rivers
-are obstructed at their mouths by sandbars, over which ships cannot
-pass. Bluefields, Nicaragua, has been a most profitable field for
-banana growing, because it has a river into which sea-going ships can
-safely enter, and up which such ships may go fifty or sixty miles, and
-receive their cargoes from landings on the plantations which border the
-Rio Escondido. Yet millions of bunches of bananas have been shipped
-from the open coast of Honduras, where the one good harbor is that at
-Puerto Cortez.
-
-Other millions have been shipped from Port Limón and from Bocas del
-Toro, in Costa Rica, whence a few hundred bunches were sent as a
-beginning to the United States in the year 1883. Twenty years later
-the port of Limón itself sent 4,174,200 bunches to the markets of the
-world. They brought to Costa Rica credit for producing the best bananas
-known.
-
-For ages the native of banana lands was content with the fact that he
-got from his plantation more than enough food. Some thirty-five years
-ago a few bold men ventured to pay twelve or fifteen cents a bunch
-for a few cargoes in the Bay Islands, off the coast of Honduras, and
-carried them to the Gulf States. There they found they could sell the
-fruit, for there lived people who had traveled to the tropics, and
-learned to eat their foods. To-day millions of bunches are each year
-sold in the United States and even in Canada, and in 1902 ship-loads
-were sent from Costa Rica direct to Europe. That little republic alone
-received not less than $1,127,400 for bananas sold abroad during the
-year that ended with September, 1902.
-
-The United Fruit Company, of Boston, was formed in the year 1888, and
-ten years later was said to have a surplus of more than $6,000,000,
-owned thousands of acres of bananas, and had built expressly for its
-fruit carrying business four superb steamers, and employed many others.
-
-It is safe to assume that more than $6,000,000 was paid in the year
-1902, in Central America alone, to planters of bananas. Nearly all of
-that was paid by products of American farms, factories and forests.
-Farmer, manufacturer and miner, lumberman, railroad man and sailor,
-merchant and broker of this country, are all concerned in and benefited
-by the work done in shady aisles beneath banana leaves on the banks of
-tropic rivers.
-
-Bananas reach their best estate on the low, deep alluvium near the
-Caribbean coast, where the temperature never sinks below 60° and is
-seldom below 80° F. Such low lands serve all the better if flooded
-two or three times in the year, for the banana will drink much water,
-and such floods bring silt from the hills, and thus keep the ground
-fertilized without cost to the owner. In 1897 famed banana fields of
-the Rio Escondido were so deeply flooded that the steamship “Saga”
-voyaged through the main streets of Rama, fully sixty miles from
-the mouth of the river, to pick off from their roofs the dwellers
-in that town. The bananas barely showed their tops above the yellow
-flood. Along the coast flew reports that the plantations were ruined;
-subscriptions were asked to help the planters: and three months
-later they were harvesting better crops than in years before. Their
-plantations had been so enriched that they bore most bountifully.
-
-Bananas may be grown wherever there is some moisture and no near
-approach to the frost line; but a touch of frost cuts down the banana
-as a breath from a fiery furnace would blight a tender lily. The city
-of Tegucigalpa is 3,600 feet above the level of the sea, yet in that
-town is a field some thirty feet above the current in the swift river
-which it borders. It is very dry during months of each year, but in
-that field are plátanos which reach a height of more than twenty feet
-and bear bunches enough comfortably to support the owner. In narrow
-cañon and wider valley near that place are many patches of bananas
-which bring to their planters a sufficient income. And at that altitude
-the mercury sometimes falls below 65° Fahrenheit.
-
-In the land of bananas, cats, dogs and pigs, mules, horses and cattle,
-parrots, babies and all other domestic animals thrive on this perfect
-nature-food, when they can get it. I have seen an Indian woman pry open
-with her fingers the jaws of a baby peccary, and with a gruel of green
-bananas choke off its incessant, rasping cry of “ma, ma!” And the next
-instant she put that same calabash of gruel to the lips of her own babe
-of three or four months. I’ve seen other Indians feed infant tapir,
-suckling jaguar, skinny squabs of parrots and very young monkeys on
-such pap, which those folk call wabool. I, myself, have safely carried
-abandoned cardinals through from their infant days of a beggarly few
-pin feathers to those of full regimentals of brilliant scarlet and
-epaulets of jet; and they were as overflowing with joyful song and
-saucy happiness as they could have been had worms and bugs been the
-chief of their diet every day of their lives, instead of the bananas on
-which they had been largely fed.
-
-Why not, indeed, when cakes and beer, brandy and sugar, pies, puddings
-and sauce, and many another thing good for man to take for his
-stomach’s sake, are made from bananas. So, too, are paper and laces,
-brushes and cloth, and cordage enough to pull up the earth by its
-roots, if only we had a place to hook the tackle.
-
-[Illustration: HARVESTING BANANAS]
-
-When he has set out an acre or two of bananas, the planter need have no
-fears for the future. He has ample insurance against such privations
-as come from illness, accident or old age: and they who by a little
-labor pay for such insurance share each day its material benefits. No
-need for them to die that others may enjoy the blessings of such wise
-provision; nor need the planter toil with hoe or spade, cultivator or
-plow. It may be he will slash away with machete such vine or sapling,
-grass or weed as happens to obstruct his path; but as a whole he
-interferes as little as possible with the operations of kindly Mother
-Nature. She is more than ready to do his work: he is willing to let her
-do it.
-
-He whose acre of bananas has been well planted has on it 225 hills,
-or 900 stalks. Each stalk will give him a bunch which, on rich, new
-ground, should weigh 60 pounds, say 54,000 pounds each 12 or 14 months.
-That is the theory. The fact seems to be that the average yield is
-really 175 to 300 full bunches to the acre per annum, say a mean of
-270 bunches weighing about 16,000 pounds. The average yield reported
-all along the Caribbean shore and from Jamaica, during a dozen years,
-equaled 270.95 full bunches an acre per annum.
-
-In the year 1902 the average yield of potatoes in the United States was
-80.44 bushels per acre, and the average farm value was 49 cents per
-bushel, or $39.45 an acre. In Costa Rica the average price of bananas
-on the plantation was equal to at least 27 cents a bunch. At that
-figure 261 bunches would bring $70.47. In August, 1903, the price was
-raised to 31 cents a bunch on contracts to run three to five years;
-which should give $84.00 per acre each year. That is a cash difference
-of $44.55 in favor of the man whose bananas raised themselves for him.
-There was another difference in his favor, for his fruit may be eaten
-green or ripe, raw or roasted, boiled or fried, with fish, flesh or
-fowl, or with none of these.
-
-Those who dwell in the mountain regions, far from the ports whence
-bananas are shipped, dip in lye and dry in the sun many a plátano.
-It is then shriveled, moldy-looking and altogether unlovely; but if
-kept dry it remains sweet and wholesome many a year. It may be eaten
-uncooked, when it is a gummy, sugary paste; but drop it into scalding
-water, put it into a hot oven, or stick it up beside the fire, and it
-becomes mightily puffed up, tender and savory. It might be sent thus
-dried to feed the people of the North or of Europe, for it would be
-easily packed and carried.
-
-Naturally the intelligent planter concerns himself mainly with the
-question: What is the cost, the yield and the profit of banana growing?
-There are evidences that many people in the North feel a lively
-curiosity about the same points.
-
-Before one can give a trustworthy reply to such question he must study
-the evidence of those who have had opportunity to learn the truth, and
-he should be able to present the general averages of the results shown
-by many such witnesses. The planter of medium ability and industry
-may confidently expect to attain the average results; he who has less
-intelligence and thrift should not complain if he fails to get as
-good returns; he who shows more than common skill, application and
-energy will win greater reward than is shown by the average of the
-banana-growing of the many, as in other occupations great skill and
-industry bring the larger rewards.
-
-Reports covering years of experience by thousands of planters in the
-West Indies and along the Atlantic coast of Mexico and of Central
-America, indicate that the cost per acre of making banana plantations
-and cultivating and harvesting the first crop therefrom, the yield in
-bunches and the income, are as shown in the following table:
-
-  ===========+=========+=========+=========+=========
-  Countries  | Bunches |  Income |   Cost  |  Profit
-  Costa Rica | 250.0   | $ 70 67 | $ 28 84 | $ 41 83
-  Guatamala  | 267.5   |  124 36 |   42 80 |   81 56
-  Honduras   | 294.0   |  121 13 |   18 97 |  102 16
-  Jamaica    | 288.0   |  109 48 |   27 58 |   81 90
-  Mexico     | 280.0   |  123 61 |   28 12 |   95 49
-  Nicaragua  | 246.2   |   86 36 |   22 07 |   64 29
-  -----------+---------+---------+---------+---------
-  Averages   | 270.95  |$ 105 94 | $ 28 06 | $ 77 87
-  ===========+=========+=========+=========+=========
-
-From the foregoing it appears that the general average yield per acre
-during the twenty years covered by the figures given, was 270.95
-bunches per acre; the average cost per acre was $28.06, which was only
-10.3 cents per bunch. The profit per bunch was 28.7 cents, or 287.9 per
-cent.
-
-A report dated August 1, 1903, by Las Haciendas de Santa Clara, Costa
-Rica, which has 550 acres of bananas in full bearing, and where wages
-are one colon or 47 cents per diem, gives the cost of cultivating and
-delivering the fruit at the railroad, as $17.69 per acre, the yield
-at 173 bunches and the income at $54.90 annually. That shows that the
-bananas cost 10.2 cents per bunch, and that the profit was 20.8 cents
-a bunch, or 200 per cent. But as the fruit is sold five years ahead
-at those figures, the small percentage of profit may be regarded as a
-fair return for the investment, combined as it is with an assurance of
-continued gain.
-
-There are those who insist that the higher results shown in the
-foregoing table may easily be obtained by any one who will give as much
-thought and labor to growing bananas as are required for the successful
-raising of corn or of potatoes. It is true that the figures on which
-the averages shown are based were, in many cases, from the experience
-of native and other planters of little diligence and skill, and that
-they got smaller results than might easily have been obtained. It may
-be possible that if one will allow two or three stalks to rise from
-each stand of bananas, and together mature their fruit, he many get
-444 to 780 bunches from an acre each of a few years, and that in such
-a case he might get $185 to $278 for the crop; but it will be clear
-to all that he who expects to make only 270 bunches per annum from an
-acre, and get only $78 profit therefrom, will be safer than he who
-invests his money with the expectation of making greater gains.
-
-The Hand Book of Nicaragua, published by the Bureau of American
-Republics, which is under the direction of the U. S. Department of
-State, says:
-
- There is, perhaps, no industry in Central America that is more
- attractive to men of small capital than banana growing, from the fact
- that the clearing of the land is effected cheaply, and from the small
- cost of after-cultivation, which is limited only to such clearing of
- weeds and undergrowth as may be sufficient to allow access to the
- trees, and the short time necessary to produce a paying crop. When
- the trees and brush that have been cut in clearing the land become
- sufficiently dry, they are burned, and the banana suckers are then
- planted among the charred remains and ashes, without any further
- preparation of the soil. The best results are obtained by giving the
- trees plenty of space, say from 15 to 18 feet apart. In about ten
- months the first fruit can be gathered; but in the second year the
- trees reach maturity, and by a proper management of the fruit stalks
- in a fair sized plantation a constant succession in the crop may be
- secured, and fruit gathered every week throughout the year.
-
- The only careful work necessary on a banana plantation is in handling
- the heavy bunches so as to avoid bruising them, as any such injury
- causes a black spot to appear, beneath which decay quickly begins as
- the fruit ripens. The natives have learned by experience when they cut
- into the fruit stalk so to gauge the strength of the blow as to cut
- just deep enough to cause the stalk to bend slowly over until the end
- of the bunch reaches the ground, when another slash with the machete
- severs it, and it is loaded carefully into the cart.
-
- A plantation of 40 manzanas (about 69 acres) will, during and after
- the second year, produce about 54,000 bunches. The lowest price paid
- for bunches for some years past is 37½ cents per bunch, which would
- give an annual value of the crop of $20,250, or more than double the
- expenditure for purchase of land, clearing, cultivating and gathering
- the crop, and all expenses to the end of the second year.
-
-As the cost of producing bananas after the first crop from a plantation
-is confined to cultivating and harvesting, which may be done for $10
-per acre yearly, it is scarcely wonderful that Judge O’Hara, late U.
-S. Consul at Greytown, Nicaragua, a lawyer whose acute mind is trained
-to sifting evidence, reported to the Department of State at Washington
-regarding banana-growing on the Atlantic coast of that republic, that:
-
- It seems reasonably certain that bananas on the Bluefields River pay
- better than many crops in the United States. * * * * These figures
- would seem to indicate that at the end of a year a planter having 36
- acres of bananas under cultivation would have $3,847.32 left after
- paying for all necessary labor and provisions--figures apt to bring
- discontent to an American farmer having but 36 acres of wheat or corn;
- and especially so when he compares the price of his land, ranging from
- $15 to $80 per acre, with that of land in eastern Nicaragua, where
- cultivated lands may be said to have no established market value, few
- improved plantations having ever been sold.
-
-[Illustration: BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY]
-
-Such discontent might be aggravated by consideration of the differences
-which exist between the results obtained from the chief eight crops of
-the United States and those shown by the foregoing summary of banana
-farming. These differences are illustrated by the following figures,
-those for the crops of the North showing the yield and values for the
-year 1897. The last column shows the difference in favor of bananas per
-acre:
-
-  =================+==========+==========+===================
-        CROPS      |  Yield   |  Value   | Difference, favor
-                   | per acre | per acre | of Bananas
-  -----------------+----------+----------+-------------------
-  Barley, bushels  |   23.11  |  $12 34  |      $93 59
-  Buckwheat, 〃    |   16.08  |    9 69  |       96 25
-  Corn,      〃    |   24.62  |    9 51  |       96 43
-  Oats,      〃    |   27.19  |    8 29  |       97 65
-  Potatoes,  〃    |   80.44  |   39 45  |       66 49
-  Rye,       〃    |   13.30  |    8 22  |       97 72
-  Wheat,     〃    |   12.78  |   10 11  |       95 83
-  Hay, tons        |    1.26  |   10 93  |       95 01
-  Tobacco, pounds  |  797.30  |   55 81  |       50 13
-  -----------------+----------+----------+-------------------
-  General averages |          |  $18 28  |      $87 66
-  =================+==========+==========+===================
-
-From this it is evident that bananas give five and one-half times as
-much as the principal crops of the United States give the farmer for
-his toil.
-
-Many native planters seem content with the returns their bananas give,
-and appear to have no thought of increasing that income.
-
-“Why don’t you plant more bananas? See how well this little patch has
-paid,” I have said to many of them.
-
-“Why should I do that? Have I not plenty to eat? I have enough money;
-if I plant more I shall have to do more work to get more money which I
-don’t need,” is the substance of their replies.
-
-Years ago U. S. Consul Burchard complained of the banana business of
-the Honduras coast, that “A large proportion of the fruit-growers
-were formerly vacqueros in the interior, working on a salary of $30
-to $40 a year. They are now owners of plantations, and have a steady
-income of $30 to $300 a month. The large amount of money distributed
-along this coast in exchange for fruit would make any civilized and
-temperate community prosperous and happy. There would be public and
-private schools, churches and banks, newspapers and libraries, parks
-and carriages, and handsome dwellings supplied with every comfort and
-luxury, surrounded by gardens of flowers, fruits and vegetables natural
-to this climate of perpetual seedtime and harvest.”
-
-So it soon will be, for already Italian and German, Englishman and
-American have accepted the invitation of a most kindly Nature, and the
-sincere welcome of friendly natives, and cottages peep here and there
-from out the glossy greenery, hammocks swing beneath the never-ceasing
-rustle of the palms in the blessed trade winds, and the fruit of
-Paradise gives to all a most generous support.
-
-But those who have good lands back from navigable water and remote from
-railroads, are not without hope of profit from bananas. For they may
-dry the fruit, pack it in dainty boxes with a liberal dusting of sugar
-to fill vacant spaces, and send it to the hungry millions of Europe.
-This has been successfully done by planters of Trinidad and of Jamaica,
-who, in at least some instances, found that they could sell the dried
-fruit at 16 to 20 cents a pound. Green bunches average nearly 60 pounds
-in weight, two-thirds of which is lost in peeling and drying, leaving
-about 20 pounds, which, at 15 cents, will give $3 per bunch. If the
-production of the green bananas and the drying should cost $2 a bunch,
-the income from an acre of bananas would be $288 yearly. In practice it
-has been found that the total cost and income of dried bananas give a
-net return of $2.72 per bunch, which equaled about $783 per acre.
-
-Both plátanos and guineos, or ordinary yellow bananas, may be
-profitably dried or made into flour. This will utilize the surplus
-fruit and such bunches as are too small to sell to advantage. Frequent
-mention is made by Stanley, of banana flour in his “In Darkest Africa.”
-He strongly indorses its nutritive qualities, and wonders that the
-natives did not appear to have discovered what invaluable nourishing
-and easily digested food they had in the plátano and banana. He
-expressed the conviction that, “If only the virtues of banana flour
-were publicly known, it is not to be doubted but it would be largely
-consumed in Europe. For infants, persons of delicate digestion,
-dyspeptics and those suffering from temporary derangement of the
-stomach, the flour properly prepared would be of universal demand.
-During my two attacks of gastritis a light gruel of this, mixed with
-milk, was the only matter that could be digested.”
-
-It is interesting to note that such a high authority as the “Dictionary
-of Economical Productions of India” says:
-
- The large crop of food produced by bananas and plantains may be
- preserved for an indefinite period either by drying the fruit or
- by preparing meal from it. When the nearly ripe fruit is cut into
- slices and dried in the sun, a certain part of the sugar contained
- in the fruit crystalizes on the surface and acts as a preservative.
- The slices thus prepared, if made from the finer varieties, make an
- excellent dessert preserve, and if from the coarser, may be used for
- cooking in the ordinary way. They keep well if carefully packed when
- dry, and ought to form a valuable antiscorbutic for long voyages.
- The fruit may also be similarly preserved whole by stripping off the
- skin and drying it in the sun. Plantain meal is prepared by stripping
- off the husk and reducing it to powder, and finely sifting. It is
- calculated that the fresh core will yield 40 per cent. of this meal,
- and that an acre of average quality will yield over a ton.
-
- Plantain meal is of a slightly brownish color, and has an agreeable
- odor, which becomes more perceptible when warm water is poured upon
- it, and has a considerable resemblance to that of orris root. When
- mixed with cold water it forms a feebly tenacious dough, more adhesive
- than that of oatmeal, but much less so than that of wheaten flour.
- When baked on a hot plate this dough forms a cake which is agreeable
- to the sense of smell, and is by no means unpleasant to the taste.
- When boiling water is poured over the meal it is changed into a
- transparent jelly, having an agreeable taste and smell. Boiled with
- water it forms a thick gelatinous mass, very much like boiled sago in
- color, but possessing a peculiar pleasant odor.
-
-In this connection it may be interesting to note that, according to
-an analysis published in the _American Analyst_, New York, February
-15th, 1893, the chemical composition of bananas and potatoes is almost
-identical, as shown by the following comparison:
-
-                                              Banana  Potato
-  Water                                        75.71  75.77
-  Albumenoids                                   1.71   1.79
-  Total carbonaceous matter (non-nitrogenous)  20.13  20.72
-  Woody fibre                                   1.74    .75
-  Ash                                            .71    .97
-
-Nor do the food elements in bananas and plátanos vary greatly, the sum
-of each being about the same.
-
-In a communication to Kew by Mr. Louis Asser, of the Hague, Holland,
-it was announced that a syndicate proposes to take up the manufacture
-of banana and plantain meal and the preparation of dried bananas on
-a large scale in Dutch Guiana. The communication referred to gives
-the following list of commercial preparations from the banana and the
-plátano:
-
- 1. Dried slices of the entire fruit (pulp and peel) in the starchy
- state suitable for the preparation of alcohol or for making into a
- nourishing bread.
-
- 2. Meal in a starchy state from the pulp only for making into a
- superior kind of bread or porridge.
-
- 3. Flakes and meal in a dextrinous state for use in breweries or for
- making into nourishing soups, puddings, etc.
-
- 4. Dried peel and coarse meal prepared from it for feeding cattle and
- pigs.
-
- 5. Banana marmalade.
-
- 6. Dried bananas entire without peel put up like dried figs in boxes.
-
- 7. Raw alcohol from fresh bananas, and also from dried banana meal.
-
- 8. Syrup of bananas for confectionery, for preparations of liquors and
- for sweetening champagne.
-
- 9. Banana meal for the manufacture of glucose.
-
- 10. Fibre of banana and plantain prepared from the stems after
- fruiting, and intended for the manufacture of paper and cordage.
-
-[Illustration: BEGINNING OF A GREAT TRAFFIC]
-
-Mr. Asser estimates the entire cost of a ton of banana meal, delivered
-in Europe, at $23. This includes cost of cultivation, gathering the
-crop, making the meal, and the freight. At that time the average market
-value of Indian wheat in Liverpool was $30 per ton. Considering the
-selling value of the meal to be no greater than that of the wheat, the
-prices quoted would show a margin of profit equal to about 30 per cent.
-on the capital invested.
-
-From British Guiana comes the following interesting information
-about plátano flour, taken from a report by Dr. Shier on the
-“Starch-producing Plants” of that country:
-
- The plantain is so abundant and cheap that it might, if cut and dried
- in its green state, be exported with advantage. It is in this unripe
- state that it is so largely used by the peasantry of this Colony as
- an article of food. When dried and reduced to the state of meal, it
- cannot like wheat flour, be manufactured into macaroni or vermicelli,
- or, at least, the macaroni made from it falls into powder when put
- into hot water. Plantain meal is prepared by stripping off the husk
- of the plantain, slicing the core, and drying it in the sun. When
- thoroughly dry it is powdered and sifted. It has a fragrant odor,
- acquired in drying, somewhat resembling fresh hay or tea. It is
- largely employed as the food of infants and invalids. In respect to
- nutritiveness it deserves a preference over all the pure starches on
- account of the proteine compounds it contains. The flavor of the meal
- depends a good deal on the rapidity with which the slices are dried.
- Above all, the plantain must not be allowed to approach too closely
- to yellowness or ripeness, otherwise it becomes impossible to dry it.
- The color of the meal is injured when steel knives are used in husking
- or slicing, but silver or nickel blades do not injure the color.
- Full-sized and well-filled bunches give 60 per cent. of core to 40
- per cent. of husk and top-stem; but in general it would be found that
- the core did not much exceed 50 per cent. of dry meal, so that from
- 20 to 25 per cent. of meal is obtained from the plantain, or 5 pounds
- from the average bunch of 25 pounds; and an acre of plantain walk of
- average quality, producing during the year 450 such bunches, would
- yield 4 tons and 10 pounds of meal.
-
-In 1891, C. W. Meaden wrote from Trinidad to the following effect in
-relation to a trial shipment of dried bananas:
-
- This experiment will prove of importance to banana growers, as drying
- bananas seems to open a way no other means offers of utilizing fruit.
- It overcomes the difficulty of bad roads, long hauls and other
- drawbacks some planters have to face in marketing bananas.
-
- The result of drying six bunches, weighing an average of 52 pounds
- per ripe bunch, was 97 pounds of dried fruit. There was a loss of
- two-thirds in peeling and drying. The fruit sold for $19.40, or 20
- cents per pound. Deducting freight charges left $15.47, or a fraction
- under 16 cents per pound. This was at the rate of $2.72 per bunch. The
- cost was put at 53 cents, which covered purchase of land, clearing
- woods and draining, planting, weeding and cutting, drying, fuel, boxes
- and packing; but did not include cost of dryer, as that would be but
- a fraction on each bunch dried. After deducting the above there was a
- profit of $2.19 per bunch.
-
-Mr. Meaden said of this:
-
- I do not desire to set up as a teacher, but facts and figures speak
- for themselves. The account shown is not an approximate one, but the
- money has been received and the Canadians are asking for more at the
- same price. An order is now in hand for 224 pounds for London at
- 6d. per pound in bulk, the consignee to do the retail packing and
- advertising. As the fruit is something new it is being sought, and
- all that can be dried is being profitably disposed of. I may add that
- the dryer does his work well, turning out the fruit in uniform color.
- Attention must be paid to this, and also that fruit as nearly as
- possible of one size be dried, as this facilitates packing. Small ones
- can be used for stock, etc. Twelve good sized fruits weigh one pound.
-
-The _Daily Gleaner_, of Kingston, Jamaica, said in March, 1899, in
-reference to an enterprise on the Montpelier estate of Hon. Evelyn
-Ellis:
-
- As far as dried bananas are concerned the investment is a success.
- Orders are already taken for more than can be supplied. The factory
- will be duplicated as soon as possible. Every one who has tasted the
- bananas is of the opinion that they are superior to figs in every way,
- and there is likely to be a large home consumption as soon as the
- factory can supply the market.
-
-Housewives who wish for novelties to lend new charm to their tables,
-to tickle the palate of the epicure, or to coax the reluctant appetite
-of the invalid, will find them in novel dainties made from bananas.
-Excellent and nutritious bread may be made of the flour. Puddings,
-fritters and sauce have already been mentioned; but bananas glacé are
-new to most northern folk, and may be made a most delightful addition
-to our desserts. They are superior to dried figs, for when split into
-four slices, thickly covered with powdered sugar, and exposed to the
-sun awhile they turn themselves into a jelly-like, delicious and
-delicate confection, such as is at its best when made in the native
-home of the fruit, and packed in pretty boxes to be sent to people of
-fine taste in the cold North.
-
-Having in view all these facts, why should not multitudes make homes
-where scorching heat and biting cold are never felt, and tornado and
-deadly blizzard are unknown; where no destructive floods nor ruinous
-droughts ever come, and never ceasing winds bring coolness from the
-sea; where spring is eternal and harvests never end, and delicious
-fruits yield profusely all the years; where the pine and palm together
-shade the ground, and the coco and banana yield generous provision
-for every need; where a little work insures against want and care, and
-health and leisure make old age secure and content?
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-Transcriber’s Note
-
-Minor typographical errors (i.e. missing punctuation and “egiv”
-changed to “give”) have been corrected.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bananas, by Edward Wilkin Perry
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