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THE CUBA REVIEW 



INFORMATION FOR THE AMERICAN SETTLER 



FOOD VALUE OF BANANA MEAL— A DEVICE FOR KEEPING OUT ANTS — 



IRRIGATION PLANS 



Will Keep Ants from Hives 



The best way to kill ants is with the oft- 

 repeated remedy, i. e., bisulphide of carbon. 

 However, there are places which, for one 

 reason or another, it is almost impracticable 

 to kill off the ants; and then the apiarist 

 needs a hive-stand that will exclude them. 



The engraving shows one of my hive- 

 stands complete and ready to have the 

 hive placed upon it. It is nothing but 

 a table turned upside down, and an empty 

 tomato-can, with the top melted off, in- 

 verted over each table-leg. The ants can 

 crawl up the table-leg and all around 

 on the inside of the can, but they cannot 

 make the turn around the lower edge of 

 the cans, and come up on the outside of 

 the cans and thus reach the hive. Be careful 

 not to allow anj^ holes in the sides of the 

 cans that the ants can crawl through. 



-'S ^sfc 



A hive stand which will prevent ants from getting 

 into the hives. 



The space between the table-legs and in- 

 side of cans must be at least half an inch ; 

 but the cans rest on the ends of the legs. 



Here is something which I have never 

 seen in print. Ants carry out the queen, 

 bees, and eggs from the cells. A few 

 years ago the question was being discussed 

 in Gleanings, "Do bees transfer eggs from 

 one cell to another?" That gave me an 

 idea, _ as I was having trouble with the 

 ants in the hives, bees cross and not doing 

 well ; and I thought if bees could transfer 

 eggs may be the ants could too. So I 

 went to watching them, and, sure enough, 

 they were carrying away eggs as well as 

 honey. No wonder the bees were cross! — 

 /. M. Caldenell, Ysabel, Mexico, in "Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture," Medina (Ohio). 



Banana Meal 



An article in L'Agronomie Tropicale for 

 May, 1910, draws attention to the fact that 

 banana meal, made from the fruits while 

 they are still green, has attracted an increas- 

 ing amount of interest during recent years. 

 Moreover, the price of the fruit itself has 

 become so low, that it is now available for 

 the use of the general public. Numerous 

 analyses show that a ripe banana contains 

 40.08 per cent of sucrose, and 27.62 per cent 

 of glucose. The nutritive value of the 

 banana is very 'high ; it gives, in energy 

 units, 1 calorie per gram ; while, after dry- 

 ing, it furnishes as much as 2.85 calories. 

 Much attention has been given recently to 

 the preparation of the meal. In this, the 

 unripe fruits are ground up, after a pre- 

 liminary drying. 



The chemical composition of the meal is 

 very different from that of the ripe fruits. 

 While peeled bananas only contain 1 to 2 

 per cent of starch, with 70 per cent of 

 sugar, the meal made from the green fruit 

 shows the reverse proportion in these 

 figures, namely, SO per cent of starch, with 

 3 to 4 per cent of sugar. This shows plainly 

 that, during the ripening of the banana, 

 there is a large transformation of starch 

 into sugar. — Agricultural News. 



Tomatoes for England 



Tomatoes command high prices in Eng- 

 land, and if they can be shipped there suc- 

 cessfully it is a market worth cultivating, 

 says U. S. Consul Al,bert Halstead at 

 Birmingham, England. In September last 

 tomatoes sold at 8 to 12 cents per pound, 

 and when the greenhouses must be heated, 

 as high as 20 cents per pound is secured. 



The popular tomato in England is small 

 and round, preferably not more than 2 or 

 3 inches in diameter. Larger fruit, strange 

 to say, would bring lower prices. 



If, says our consul, tomatoes can be de- 

 livered in Birmingham and elsewhere in 

 England in good condition at from 5 to 

 .5^2 cents per pound, all charges paid, 

 there would be a good profit. Tomatoes, 

 if packed in sawdust, excelsior or moss, 

 ought to arrive in good condition. Nearly 

 $11,000,000 worth were shipped from the 

 Canary Islands to England in 1909. 



A suitable location has been secured in 

 the municipality of Pinar del Rio for 

 $25,000, on which the new agricultural 

 school will be built. 



