FRUITS AND NUTS 93 



beefsteak or wheat bread. The absurdity of such claims is 

 sufficiently apparent when one remembers that the fresh ba- 

 nana contains 75 per cent, of water and that a comparison of 

 the composition of the dry substance of one product with an- 

 other product in a fresh condition is obviously unfair. Many 

 exaggerated statements as to the yield of bananas as compared 

 with the yields of potatoes and wheat have also crept into the 

 literature of this subject. For example, in a recent book on 

 bananas, which is perhaps the fullest and most satisfactory 

 discussion thus far presented of the whole subject from an 

 agricultural and botanical standpoint, the statement was made 

 that the total yield of food material produced by bananas is 

 240,000 pounds per acre. The utter impossibility of such a 

 yield is apparent from the fact that the average number of 

 bunches of bananas per acre per year is from 230 to 240. In 

 order to secure a total yield of 240,000 pounds per acre it would 

 obviously be necessary that each bunch of bananas weigh 1,000 

 pounds, whereas the average weight is from 40 to 75 pounds. 

 The banana possesses sufficient well known merits to make its 

 way in the world without the aid of such exaggerations. 



The banana is subject to the attacks of various fungi and 

 insect pests, but only one, the so-called Panama disease, is of 

 real serious consequence. This disease causes the wilting down 

 and rotting of the stem and spreads quite rapidly throughout 

 the plantation and from one plantation to another. In parts 

 of Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, and British Guiana, the dis- 

 ease has caused devastation and abandonment of large areas 

 of bananas. The Panama disease attacks particularly the 

 Jamaica and Brazilian banana. The Qiinese banana, on the 

 other hand, is quite resistant. No satisfactory method of con- 

 trolling the Panama disease has been devised and the substitu- 

 tion of the Chinese banana for the Jamaica banana appears to 

 be the only practical method of continuing in the banana busi- 

 ness in the infected areas. 



The United States occupies a very unimportant place in the 



