AUSTRALIA 195 



is exported to the southern States of the Commonwealth. 

 The industry supports a large number of persons other than 

 the actual producers of the fruit, and forms one of the 

 principal exports from the north. As many as 20,000 

 or more large bunches frequently leave by a single steamer 

 for the south, and the bringing of this quantity to the port 

 of shipment gives employment to a number of men on 

 tram lines and small coastal steamers. The inspectors 

 under the Diseases in Plants Act are kept very busy, as 

 they have to examine every bunch carefully before ship- 

 ment to prevent as far as possible the condemnation and 

 destruction of possibly a whole shipment on arrival at 

 Sydney or Melbourne on the assumption that if a few 

 bunches are found affected by fruit fly or any other disease, 

 the whole shipment must be diseased. 



44 Many of the bananas are shipped in crates from North 

 Queensland, especially from Innisfail (Geraldton), and from 

 places where the fruit is first loaded on to small river 

 steamers and junks to be transhipped at Cairns. If bunches 

 are sent uncrated from these centres, they are liable to 

 receive much damage from over-handling. The crates are 

 made of roughly split silky oak timber, and the bunches 

 are secured from knocking about by being packed in dry 

 banana leaves. Crate-packed bananas always arrive in 

 better orderthan loose bunches, as they escape the enormous 

 pressure of the mass of fruit, and, furthermore, receive no 

 more handling until they reach the consignee at the port to 

 which they are forwarded." (Queensland Agricultural 

 Journal.) 



