ORCHARD CROPS 227 



grows in clusters bearing from fifty to one hundred bananas. 

 Each plant bears but one bunch and then dies down to the 

 ground. 



Bananas are grown in southern Florida, Louisiana, and Cali- 

 fornia, and are shipped to the United States and Canada in great 

 quantities from the West Indies, Central America, Mexico, and 

 other tropical lands. 



Pineapples are grown by setting out suckers which grow at 

 the base of the fruit or from the bunch of leaves growing at the 

 top. The plant is low, attaining a height of only a few inches, 

 and produces sword-shaped leaves, in the center of which the 

 pineapple is found. This fruit is generally from six to ten inches 

 long and from four to five inches thick. Its weight varies from 

 three to twenty pounds, according to the size. It is grown 

 in tropical countries chiefly, but our supply in the United States 

 comes from the West Indies, the Bahama Islands, Florida, and 

 California. 



The persimmon is found growing wild in many parts of the 

 United States and especially in Virginia, but it has been only 

 within recent years that any attempt has been made to cultivate 

 or improve any of the wild varieties. We now have more than 

 a dozen cultivated varieties which produce excellent fruit. The 

 tree is somewhat larger than the plum tree and the fruit is about 

 as large around as a silver twenty-five-cent piece, and when ripe 

 it is of a reddish golden color. It is excellent when eaten raw, 

 and when dried it has a flavor somewhat like that of dates. 



The papaw known in the United States is a shrub or tree found 

 growing in the Southern and Western States. The tree has obovate 

 lanceolate leaves, and it bears a yellowish pulpy fruit about as 

 large around as a banana, but only about half as long. The pulp is 

 surrounded by a light, thin, green skin, which is easily broken when 

 the fruit is ripe. The flavor of the fruit is generally improved 

 by frost. Experiments made with the papaw indicate that it 

 is susceptible of great improvement under cultivation and careful 

 handling. In the wild papaw the objectionable features are 

 its thin skin, which prevents its being shipped successfully, and 

 its extra large seeds, which make up so much of the bulk of the 

 fruit. 



