CHAPTER XX 

 DEVELOPMENT OF THE BANANA TRADE 



United Fruit Company. In 1867 the Governor of 

 Jamaica, Sir John Peter Grant, pointed out in his annual 

 report that the value of all the fruit exported from the 

 island during that year was only 728, although no country 

 was better suited by nature for the production of fruits of 

 great market value. He instituted in the driest district 

 a system of irrigation which proved to be of the greatest 

 value to the island in later years, when at length planters 

 woke up to the fact that bananas could be most profitably 

 grown there. The enterprise of the Boston sailor, Captain 

 ) L. D. Baker, was, however, the chief factor in the astonish- 

 ing increase in the fruit trade. He began by shipping a few 

 bunches in the vessel in which he traded between Boston 

 and Jamaica ; then the Boston Fruit Company was 

 established by him to supply steamers and deal with 

 bananas as cargoes. The demand for the fruit spread 

 from Boston throughout the States. The cultivation of 

 the fruit was extended to Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, 

 and Cuba. Bananas were shipped to other ports, to New 

 York, Baltimore, and New Orleans for convenience of 

 transport inland. The Boston Fruit Company became the 

 United Fruit Company with larger interests and more 

 extended operations. 



The development of the trade has been phenomenal, and 

 is very largely in the hands of the United Fruit Company 

 of Boston, with whom Messrs. Elders and Fyffes, of London, 

 work in close association. The United Fruit Company are 

 owners of -twenty-five steamships/of approximately 117,252 

 tons gross register, and Messrs. Elders and Fyffes of sixteen 



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