BANANA SOILS IN JAMAICA 57 



the first rank who had created the lucrative sugar industry 

 in the old days, and had battled with adversity when 

 that industry was so seriously prejudiced by the opera- 

 tion of the Continental bounties on beet sugar. To 

 planters of this grade, the cultivation of the banana 

 soon became more than the voluntary bounty of Nature 

 in smiling on the favourable conditions of soil and of 

 climate. 



" To men who had grown cane on the dry plains of St. 

 Catherine by the use of irrigation, it was but a natural 

 sequence to attempt the cultivation of the' banana under 

 the same conditions. Now every drop of water available 

 from the resources of the Rio Cobre System is being utilized 

 in this manner, and bananas are being produced on 

 10,000 acres of land that was formerly of nominal value 

 for grazing purposes. These soils would be classed as 

 natural banana soils, and the only condition required 

 to make them productive is irrigation. Had they 

 been in Portland and St. Mary these soils would have 

 been found capable of growing magnificent crops of 

 bananas with very little modification of the forces of 

 Nature. 



" It was ascertained very early in the history of the 

 industry in Jamaica that the banana could not stand 

 stagnation of soil. It was assumed that this crop could 

 not be grown on the rich clays of the St. Mary hills, and 

 that the banana land in that entire parish was restricted 

 to the alluvial bottoms and glades of rich, friable soil. 

 During the past decade the pioneers in St. Mary have 

 demonstrated that from the very summits of the hills to 

 the deepest glades, from the undulating folds of the upland 

 hills to the flat clays of the coastal region, there is hardly 

 an acre of land thft cannot be made to produce good 

 bananas. A bird's-eye view of this parish may now be 

 likened to a vast expanse of bananas, and as new roads 

 are opened out into the outlying areas, an ever-increasing 

 spread of tJiis cultivation is steadily taking place. The 

 chief cultuial problems in St. Mary have been drainage, 



