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Ananas safira, the Pineapple of the family of Bromeliaceae, is 

 larg-ely cultivated here and ranks well as a fruit. Some that I sent 

 to Boston were pronounced by judges familiar with W'est Indian 

 pines, superior. The pine growing wild in Kona, Hawaii, is small 

 but of excellent flavor. 



Bronielia pinguin, the wild pine of the uplands of Central 

 America, is juicy and attractive as it formls hedges by the way- 

 side. 



Zingiber zcniinhcf, the Ginger, cannot be called a fruit, as the 

 rootstock is the important part, but it is when preserved decidedly 

 a sweetmeat, and seems to be always on the sideboard of a Chinese 

 gentleman. Many species of the ginger family flourish in these 

 islands, some have become naturalized, and I am surprised that 

 our Chinese with the lessening profit from their rice fields do not 

 cultivate ginger for preserving. 



Miisa sapieutum, the Banana. There is need of importing bet- 

 ter stock than the Chinese if we are to compete with the West 

 Indian bananas in the San Francisco market. The people there 

 will not be always satisfied with the poor fruit we are now send- 

 ing them. There was a time when the red banana was the prin- 

 cipal kind in the Boston market ; it is now rarely seen there, and 

 in Guatemala it is fed only to the hogs. 



Miisa paradisiaca, the Plantain. The difference between banana 

 and plantain is often not understood, and some suppose that all 

 plantains are cooking bananas. Persons who have raised both 

 species can tell at a glance fromi the habit of the tree, but the sim- 

 plest distinction is that while the banana ripens its fruit from the 

 top of the bunch, the plantain ripens from the bottom. Also plan- 

 tain bunches are much smaller than those of the banana, that is 

 have fewer hands, and for that reason plantains are sold not by 

 the bunch, but by the hundred. At the port of Livingston, Guate- 

 mala, while a bunch of fine bananas of twelve hands sells for 

 fifty cents, plantains are quoted at $1.25 per hundred. The latter 

 is supposed to have a greater food value. On the Pacific Coast as 

 at San Jose de Guatemala, magnificent plantains grow a foot long 

 and of proportional diameter. These are not unlike in taste to 

 our niaia maoli of the Kona coast of Hawaii. 



Cocos niicifcra, the Coconut, certainly does not flourish on 

 these islands, and as a fruit is very inferior. Still, as it is, we do 



