196 



Journal of Agricultural Research 



Vol. Ill, No. 3 



Table III. — Composition of bananas during ripening on the stem in the humidity 



chamber — Gjntinued 



COMPOSITION BXPRBSSED IN TBRMS OP PERCENTAGE OF THE WHOLE GREEN BANANAS 



A statement of the average composition of the pulps of the four 

 bunches of bananas as analyzed, summarized from Table III, is given in 

 Table IV. 



Table IV. — .Average composition in terms of percentage of pulp of bananas at different 



stages 



Stage. 



Green pulp. . . . 



Ripe pulp 



Very ripe pulp. 



Percent- 

 age of 

 whole 

 fruit. 



58.94 

 62, 12 

 68.14 



72. 29 

 72. 16 

 75-5° 



Solids. 



27-71 

 37.84 

 24.50 



0.89 

 -92 

 .84 



Alka- 

 linity 

 of ash. 



0.52 

 .50 

 .47 



Pro- 

 tein. 



NX6.3S. 



1.23 



1. 17 



Re- 

 ducing 

 sugars 



0.53 

 11-54 

 12.89 



0.41 

 5.39 

 5.98 I 



32. 26 

 6.34 



.82 



FOURTH EXPERIMENT 



In the fourth experiment lots of bananas of the same initial ripeness 

 and taken from the same stem were analyzed successively during ripen- 

 ing. The rate of respiration of each lot was determined immediately 

 before its analysis. It was thus possible to correlate the chemical 



