62 0eo0rapbical Motes on 



The important feature, and the one upon which the success and 

 profit of the industry depend largely, is that of cheap and certain trans- 

 portation facilities. That requisite is easily obtainable ; for instance, 

 there are extensive and cheap lands for sale along the Tampico branch 

 of the Mexican Central Railroad, from which the fruit can be shipped 

 either all by rail, or by rail to Tampico, and thence by boat. 



We have many kinds of bananas in Mexico, of different sizes, 

 colors, and flavors, ranging in length from two to eighteen inches, and 

 from one-half of an inch to three inches in diameter. The largest, 

 which in some places are thought unfit for food, are in others, like So- 

 conusco, considered the best ; very likely on account of their different 

 quality. When roasted the latter are very juicy, and taste exactly as if 

 they had been preserved in sugar. Some people on the coast live al- 

 most entirely on bananas, this fruit forming their principal food. The 

 banana is likewise a tropical plant, and thrives best on the lowlands. 



Pineapple. The Toltecs and Aztecs knew how to cultivate the pine- 

 apple, and when the Spaniards conquered Mexico, they found the 

 fruit in the markets of the towns on their way from Veracruz to the 

 great Tenochtitlan. "From time immemorial," Sir Henry Dering 

 says, " the pineapple has been cultivated in Amatlan, a town five miles 

 south of Cordoba, from where the ancient Mexicans used to get their 

 main supply." Now it is grown in tropical Hidalgo, Puebla, Veracruz, 

 Tabasco, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Morelos, Guerrero, Michoacan, Colima, 

 Jalisco, and Tepic. " Besides the fruit being very delicious and whole- 

 some," Sir Henry Dering says, " a fine wine and vinegar are made of 

 the juice. The leaf furnishes a fibre of extraordinary strength and 

 fineness, making it even more valuable than the fruit. The fibre is 

 made into ropes, cables, binding twine, thread, mats, bagging, ham- 

 mocks, and paper. A pineapple rope three and a half inches thick 

 can support nearly three tons. A textile fabric as fine and beautiful 

 as silk is made of this fibre too. It is believed that the fine cloth of 

 various colors used by the upper classes among the Aztecs was made 

 of the pineapple fibre. The modern Mexicans do not manufacture it 

 much now, except in the Isthmus, where the Zapotec Indians still 

 make a cloth from it and from wild silk. One cause for its disuse is 

 the slow and wasteful manner in which it is separated." Pineapples 

 will grow at elevations of from 2000 to 3000 feet above the level of the 

 sea, but the best and most delicate fruit is produced on the lowlands. 



Cocoa-Nut We have in our lowlands near the sea many kinds of 

 palms called corozo, bearing different kinds of fruit, growing in large 

 bunches and the fruit very abundant, being in the shape of a small egg, 

 very rich in oils, and making also a very good food, although it is 

 hardly used now for any purpose. The palm tree bearing the cocoa-nut 

 grows, of course, very luxuriantly, and does not require any care after 



