216 THE SURVR'AL OF THE UNLIKE. [ix. 



in a single season. It is said that the first bananas 

 were brought to the United States in 1804, and the first 

 full cargo in 1830. Now from eight to ten million 

 bunches arrive annually. The Canary Islands are now 

 shipping tomatoes to London, and the United States 

 will soon be doing the same. Watermelons will follow. 

 California now unloads her green produce in the same 

 market. Even pears are exported from America to Bel- 

 gium, disputing the old saw that it is unwise to carry 

 coals to Newcastle. The world is our market. But this 

 result may have been achieved with some detriment to 

 home markets and transportation, which have been in 

 some measure overlooked and neglected ; but this evil 

 must correct itself in the long run. 



Perhaps we owe to a Frenchman the first distinct 

 exposition, some eighty years ago, of a process of pre- 

 serving perishable articles in hermetically sealed cans ; 

 but the process first gained prominence in the United 

 States, and it became known as canning. In 1825, 

 James Monroe signed patents to Thomas Kensett and 

 Ezra Daggett to cover an improvement in the art of 

 preserving, although Kensett appears to have practised 

 his method somewhat extensively as early as 1819. 

 Isaac Winslow, of Maine, is supposed to have been the 

 pioneer in canning sweet-corn, in 1842. About 1847 

 the canning industry began to attract general attention, 

 and in that year the tomato was first canned. The exo- 

 dus to California in 1849 stimulated the industry by 

 creating a demand for nnperishable eatables in compact 

 compass. North America now leads the world in the 

 extent, variety, and excellence of its canned i)roducts, 

 and much of the material is the product of orchjiids iiiid 

 gardens. In 1891, the sweet-corn pack of the United 



