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Bananas, by Harry Wilkin Perry—a Project Gutenberg eBook.
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 55729 ***</div>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
<div id="titlepage">
<h1>BANANAS</h1>
<hr class="r5 far" />
<hr class="r5 close" />
<p class="ph3">NATURE’S INSTITUTION FOR THE PROMOTION OF
LAZINESS</p>
<hr class="r5 far" />
<hr class="r5 close" />
<p><span class="smcap">By EDWARD W. PERRY</span></p>
<hr class="r5 far" />
<hr class="r5 close" />
<p class="f70">COPYRIGHTED<br />
1903<br />
BY HARRY WILKIN PERRY</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
<div id="verso">
<p class="ph4">REVISED EDITION</p>
<hr class="r5" />
<hr class="r5 close" />
<p class="ph3">NOTE</p>
<p>The chapter given in the following pages is from a work entitled:
“<span class="smcap">Tropical America: Its Planters and
Plantations</span>,” now in preparation. <cite>Sports Afield</cite> 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.”</p>
<div class="figright" style="margin-bottom: 6em;">
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</div>
<div class="chapter"></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
<div class="hang">
<p><span class="smcap">Nature’s Institution for the Promotion Of
Laziness. Bananas: What they are, how they grow, what they cost, and
what they give to man.</span></p>
</div>
<p>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
<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Musas</i>. 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 <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Musa paradisiaca</i>, which being interpreted means
the Fruit of paradise, and to another banana they have given the name
<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Musa sapientum</i>, which the sapient know means the Fruit of knowledge.
Less evidence has served well enough to burn heretics at the stake.</p>
<div class="illus">
<div class="figcenter handonly">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p04_mob.jpg" alt="banana tree" />
<div class="caption"><p>A BUNCH OF BANANAS</p></div>
</div>
<div class="figcenter screenonly">
<a href="images/i_p04_full.jpg">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p04_tn.jpg" alt="banana tree" />
</a>
<div class="caption">
<p>A BUNCH OF BANANAS</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>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,<span
class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a><br /><a
name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> green or over-ripe, raw or
roasted, baked or fried, liquid or dried. At least forty species of
the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Musas</i> are known and described, and of these there are several
sub-varieties. They have been classed by Dr. Sagot into three groups,
as follows:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>Giant bananas, of which <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">M. ensete</i> is the type. In this group no
suckers are formed. Fruit leathery and not edible, with few seeds.</p>
<p>Fleshy-fruited bananas; <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">M. sapientum</i> the type. Stem produces
suckers; spike long and decurved; fruit fleshy and usually eatable.</p>
<p>Ornamental bananas. Spike often erect, not pendant; bracts
persistent, brightly colored, each with a few flowers on its axil;
suckers many; fruit leathery. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">M. rosacea</i> furnish familiar examples of
this group.</p></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.<span
class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a
name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a
name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> of food much more convenient
and palatable than, and equal in value to, potatoes.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="relative values of various produce">
<tr>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Constituents</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Banana</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Sago</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Corn Meal</td>
<td class="tdc bt2">Wheat Flour</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl bt br"></td>
<td class="tdc bt br">Per Cent.</td>
<td class="tdc bt br">Per Cent.</td>
<td class="tdc bt br">Per Cent.</td>
<td class="tdc bt">Per Cent.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Water</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">8.05</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">13.00</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">11.09</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">15.08</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Soluble albumen dextrine</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">4.45</td>
<td class="tdc br"></td>
<td class="tdc br"></td>
<td class="tdc"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Starch</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">82.57</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">78.06</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">85.30</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">81.60</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Albumenoids</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">2.28</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">2.57</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">2.37</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">2.11</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Fat</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">0.77</td>
<td class="tdc br"></td>
<td class="tdc br"></td>
<td class="tdc"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl bb2 br">Ash</td>
<td class="tdr bb2 br pr1">1.88</td>
<td class="tdr bb2 br pr1">0.53</td>
<td class="tdr bb2 br pr1">0.43</td>
<td class="tdr bb2 pr1">0.35</td>
</tr>
</table></div>
<p>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:</p>
<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="elements of various articles of food">
<tr>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Elements</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Vegetables</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Fruits</td>
<td class="tdc bt2">Bananas</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl bt br">Carbohydrates, parts</td>
<td class="tdr bt br pr2">8.9</td>
<td class="tdr bt br">11.1</td>
<td class="tdr bt pr1">14.3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Fats</td>
<td class="tdr br pr2">0.4</td>
<td class="tdr br">0.4</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">0.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Protein</td>
<td class="tdr br pr2">2.0</td>
<td class="tdr br">0.6</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">0.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Ash</td>
<td class="tdr br pr2">0.9</td>
<td class="tdr br">0.5</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">0.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Water</td>
<td class="tdr br pr2">73.0</td>
<td class="tdr br">64.3</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">48.9</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Refuse</td>
<td class="tdr br pr2">14.8</td>
<td class="tdr br">23.1</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">35.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdc bt bb2 br">Fuel values</td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2 br pr2">203.9</td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2 br">204.0</td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2 pr1">260.0</td>
</tr>
</table></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
<div class="illus">
<div class="figcenter handonly">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p11_mob.jpg" alt="group of men sitting beside a grove of banana trees" />
<div class="caption"><p>HARD LABOR AMONG THE BANANAS</p></div>
</div>
<div class="figcenter screenonly">
<a href="images/i_p11_full.jpg">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p11_tn.jpg" alt="group of men sitting beside a grove of banana trees" />
</a>
<div class="caption">
<p>HARD LABOR AMONG THE BANANAS</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12"
id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13"
id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> of Honduras, where the one good harbor is
that at Puerto Cortez.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14"
id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15"
id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p>
<div class="illus">
<div class="figcenter handonly">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p16_mob.jpg" alt="banana trees beside a railroad track" />
<div class="caption"><p>HARVESTING BANANAS</p></div>
</div>
<div class="figcenter screenonly">
<a href="images/i_p16_full.jpg">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p16_tn.jpg" alt="banana trees beside a railroad track" />
</a>
<div class="caption"><p>HARVESTING BANANAS</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18"
id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> $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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span
class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> average
of the banana-growing of the many, as in other occupations great skill
and industry bring the larger rewards.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="economics of banana plantations in various countries">
<tr>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Countries</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Bunches</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Income</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Cost</td>
<td class="tdc bt2">Profit</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Costa Rica</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">250.0</td>
<td class="tdr br">$ 70 67</td>
<td class="tdr br">$ 28 84</td>
<td class="tdr">$ 41 83</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Guatamala</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">267.5</td>
<td class="tdr br">124 36</td>
<td class="tdr br">42 80</td>
<td class="tdr">81 56</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Honduras</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">294.0</td>
<td class="tdr br">121 13</td>
<td class="tdr br">18 97</td>
<td class="tdr">102 16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Jamaica</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">288.0</td>
<td class="tdr br">109 48</td>
<td class="tdr br">27 58</td>
<td class="tdr">81 90</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Mexico</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">280.0</td>
<td class="tdr br">123 61</td>
<td class="tdr br">28 12</td>
<td class="tdr">95 49</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Nicaragua</td>
<td class="tdr br pr1">246.2</td>
<td class="tdr br">86 36</td>
<td class="tdr br">22 07</td>
<td class="tdr">64 29</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdc bt bb2 br">Averages</td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2 br pr05">270.95</td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2 br">$ 105 94</td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2 br">$ 28 06</td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2">$ 77 87</td>
</tr>
</table></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span
class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21"
id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p></div>
<p>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:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>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<span
class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a><br /><a
name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> 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.</p></div>
<div class="illus">
<div class="figcenter handonly">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p22_mob.jpg" width="700" height="352" alt="man driving a cart loaded with bananas and pulled by a mule" />
<div class="caption"><p>BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY</p></div>
</div>
<div class="figcenter screenonly">
<a href="images/i_p22_full.jpg">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p22_tn.jpg" alt="man driving a cart loaded with bananas and pulled by a mule" />
</a>
<div class="caption"><p>BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>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:</p>
<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="comparison of values between bananas and other crops">
<tr>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">CROPS</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Yield<br />per acre</td>
<td class="tdc bt2 br">Value<br />per acre</td>
<td class="tdc bt2">Difference,<br />favor of<br />Bananas</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl bt br">Barley,<span class="pl2">bushels</span></td>
<td class="tdr bt br">23.11</td>
<td class="tdr bt br">$12 34</td>
<td class="tdr bt pr1">$93 59</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Buckwheat,<span class="pl1">〃</span></td>
<td class="tdr br">16.08</td>
<td class="tdr br">9 69</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">96 25</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Corn,<span class="pl35">〃</span></td>
<td class="tdr br">24.62</td>
<td class="tdr br">9 51</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">96 43</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Oats,<span class="pl35">〃</span></td>
<td class="tdr br">27.19</td>
<td class="tdr br">8 29</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">97 65</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Potatoes,<span class="pl2">〃</span></td>
<td class="tdr br">80.44</td>
<td class="tdr br">39 45</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">66 49</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Rye, <span class="pl35">〃</span></td>
<td class="tdr br">13.30</td>
<td class="tdr br">8 22</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">97 72</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Wheat, <span class="pl25">〃</span></td>
<td class="tdr br">12.78</td>
<td class="tdr br">10 11</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">95 83</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Hay, tons</td>
<td class="tdr br">1.26</td>
<td class="tdr br">10 93</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">95 01</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl br">Tobacco, pounds</td>
<td class="tdr br">797.30</td>
<td class="tdr br">55 81</td>
<td class="tdr pr1">50 13</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdc bt bb2 br">General averages</td>
<td class="tdl bt bb2 br"></td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2 br">$18 28</td>
<td class="tdr bt bb2 pr1">$87 66</td>
</tr>
</table></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Many native planters seem content with the returns their bananas
give, and appear to have no thought of increasing that income.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you plant more bananas? See how<span
class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> well
this little patch has paid,” I have said to many of them.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25"
id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> 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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26"
id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>
<p>It is interesting to note that such a high authority as the
“Dictionary of Economical Productions of India” says:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p></div>
<p>In this connection it may be interesting to note that, according to
an analysis published in the <cite>American Analyst</cite>, New York, February
15th, 1893, the chemical composition of bananas and potatoes is almost
identical, as shown by the following comparison:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27"
id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="comparison of composition of bananas and potatoes">
<tr>
<td class="tdc"></td>
<td class="tdc pr2">Banana</td>
<td class="tdc">Potato</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Water</td>
<td class="tdr pr2">75.71</td>
<td class="tdr">75.77</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Albumenoids</td>
<td class="tdr pr2">1.71</td>
<td class="tdr">1.79</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Total carbonaceous matter (non-nitrogenous)</td>
<td class="tdr pr2">20.13</td>
<td class="tdr">20.72</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Woody fibre</td>
<td class="tdr pr2">1.74</td>
<td class="tdr">.75</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Ash</td>
<td class="tdr pr2">.71</td>
<td class="tdr">.97</td>
</tr>
</table></div>
<p>Nor do the food elements in bananas and plátanos vary
greatly, the sum of each being about the same.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>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.</p>
<p>2. Meal in a starchy state from the pulp only for making into a
superior kind of bread or porridge.</p>
<p>3. Flakes and meal in a dextrinous state for use in breweries or for
making into nourishing soups, puddings, etc.</p>
<p>4. Dried peel and coarse meal prepared from it for feeding cattle
and pigs.</p>
<p>5. Banana marmalade.</p>
<p>6. Dried bananas entire without peel put up like dried figs in
boxes.</p>
<p>7. Raw alcohol from fresh bananas, and also from dried banana
meal.</p>
<p>8. Syrup of bananas for confectionery, for preparations of liquors
and for sweetening champagne.</p>
<p>9. Banana meal for the manufacture of glucose.</p>
<p>10. Fibre of banana and plantain prepared from the stems
after fruiting, and intended for the manufacture of paper and
cordage.</p></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
<div class="illus">
<div class="figcenter handonly">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p28_mob.jpg" alt="workers standing behind larges piles of bananas" />
<div class="caption"><p>BEGINNING OF A GREAT TRAFFIC</p></div>
</div>
<div class="figcenter screenonly">
<a href="images/i_p28_full.jpg">
<img class="border" src="images/i_p28_tn.jpg" alt="workers standing behind larges piles of bananas" />
</a>
<div class="caption"><p>BEGINNING OF A GREAT TRAFFIC</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30"
id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> 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.</p></div>
<p>In 1891, C. W. Meaden wrote from Trinidad to the following effect in
relation to a trial shipment of dried bananas:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p></div>
<p>Mr. Meaden said of this:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>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.</p></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31"
id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
<p>The <cite>Daily Gleaner</cite>, of Kingston, Jamaica, said in March, 1899, in
reference to an enterprise on the Montpelier estate of Hon. Evelyn
Ellis:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>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.</p></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32"
id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> 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?</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="margin-top: 2em">
<img src="images/i_p32.png" alt="statue, back of sitting figure" />
</div>
<div class="chapter"></div>
<div class="tnotes">
<p class="ph2">Transcriber’s Note</p>
<p>Minor typographical errors (i.e. missing punctuation and
“egiv” changed to “give”) have been
corrected.</p>
</div>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 55729 ***</div>
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