FOREWORD 



FIFTY years ago all the fruit exported from Jamaica was 

 of the value of 728. The captain of a small schooner 

 trading between Jamaica and Boston made a few trial 

 shipments of bananas, and thus with the aid of Governor 

 Sir Anthony Musgrave and others who followed him was 

 laid the foundation of an enormous industry. Jamaica 

 now exports fruit, but chiefly bananas, of the value of 

 more than a million and a half sterling. Large areas are 

 also planted with bananas in Central and South America, 

 so the Caribbean region is fast becoming the centre for the 

 production of a delicious fruit that is coming into large 

 demand in all north temperate countries. A fleet of 

 splendid white steamers conveys bananas to the teeming 

 millions in the United States, and another equally fine 

 fleet brings cargoes of 50,000 bunches at a time across the 

 Atlantic to the United Kingdom and neighbouring 

 countries. 



What Captain Baker, modest and genial man as he was, 

 did for Jamaica, Sir Alfred Jones did for the Canary 

 Islands, and eventually for Jamaica and the Caribbean. 

 Sir Alfred Jones was enabled, with the assistance given by 

 Mr. Chamberlain, to solve the hitherto difficult problem 

 of successfully carrying a perishable cargo of fruit all the 

 way across the Atlantic, first through the heart of the 

 tropics and then, on occasions, through the cold of northern 

 winters, and deliver it in splendid condition for the 

 consumption of the working millions of this country. As 

 aptly stated in a recent speech in Parliament by Mr. 



Harcourt, " it was no small service to the poor of this 



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