BANANA 



BANANA 



201 



cession of plants, and it requires some experience to 

 judge of the proper time to allow suckers to grow 

 so that there will be large cuttings in the season 

 when the highest prices prevail. Until the plants 

 are large enough to shade the ground, it is neces- 

 sary to keep down the growth of grass and weeds. 

 Some planters have found it profitable to sow 

 cowpeas at the time of planting, which occupy 

 the ground and reduce the number of cleanings 

 that it is necessary to make. One of the worst 

 enemies of the banana-grower is grass. Its appear- 

 ance in a plantation may be taken as a sign that 

 the plantation will soon cease to be productive. It 

 is not clear whether the grass is merely an indi- 

 cation that the soil is in some way depleted, or 

 whether it is itself the real cause of the dete- 

 rioration. 



The banana is attacked by comparatively few 

 diseases. The only one causing serious damage in 

 any of the centers of production here considered 

 appeared in the Bocas del Toro region of Panama. 

 This disease has been made the subject of a special 

 investigation and found to be of bacterial origin. 

 The same disease has been reported in Costa Rica, 

 but it seldom attacks vigorous plants growing in 

 suitable situations. 



Production. 



The chief centers of banana production in America 

 are Costa Rica and Jamaica. The imports for the 

 year 1905, by countries, were as follows : 



Jamaica $3,245,536 



Costa Rica 1,888,939 



Cuba 1,437,952 



Honduras 1,430,580 



Colombia 585,489 " 



Panama 415,495 



Nicaragua 391,142 



Santo Domingo 283,950 



British Honduras 112,605 



Guatemala 97,688 



Other countries 8,445 



There are marked differences between the cul- 

 tures of Costa Rica and Jamaica, and also in the 

 methods of handling the fruit. In Costa Rica the 

 plants grow to a much larger size and produce, on 

 the average, larger bunches. In Jamaica the mini- 

 mum bunch that is accepted is that of five hands, 

 while in Costa Rica nothing smaller than seven 

 hands will be received. In Costa Rica the culture is 

 less intensive than in Jamaica. In the latter place, 

 especially on the south side of the island where the 

 plantations are irrigated, they present a very 

 regular appearance. The ground is kept clean and 

 the rows in good alignment. In Costa Rica, many 

 of the large plantations receive little attention 

 aside from the removing of superfluous suckers. 



Transportation. 



As bananas are all grown in the tropics and 

 all sold in temperate countries, the industry is to a 

 large extent a question of transportation. This 

 phase of the subject has received much more care- 



ful attention than has the more strictly agricul- 

 tural side. The business is chiefly in the hands of 

 large companies, which are interested primarily 

 in transportation. These are now consolidated, so 

 that nearly all the fruit received in the northern 

 markets is handled by the United Fruit Company. 

 When locating plantations in Costa Rica, land is 

 usually selected through which it is possible to 

 construct railroads, this consideration bearing 

 quite as much weight as the nature of the land. 

 Every effort is made to handle the fruit promptly. 

 In many cases it is possible to leave the fruit on 

 the plant until the steamer that is to transport 

 it is sighted. Telephonic orders are then sent to 

 the different plantation managers and the fruit 

 is rushed in by train-loads, so that it not 

 infrequently happens that a steamer leaves the 

 wharf at Port Limon with 30,000 bunches of 



Fig. 286. Loading into cars that run to the wharf. Costa Rica. 



bananas that were growing in the plantations 

 twenty-four hours before. The service calls for 

 steamers especially constructed to carry this fruit. 

 The holds are especially well ventilated, and in 

 many of the more recent steamers the air is arti- 

 ficially cooled before it passes over the fruit. Cold 

 storage in the ordinary sense can not be applied to 

 the banana. If the green fruit is subjected to a 

 temperature much below 50°, it is injured, so 

 that, although it may keep almost indefinitely, it 

 will never ripen. To avoid this, the wharves and 

 the cars into which the bananas are loaded are 

 heated in bringing the fruit into northern ports in 

 the winter months. 



The distribution of bananas to the various cities 

 is handled with the same expedition as the ship- 

 ping. Before a cargo arrives it is apportioned to 

 the different centers of consumption, so that in a 

 few hours after the arrival of a ship the fruit is 

 on its way to distant parts of the country. 



Literature. 



The Banana in Hawaii, J. B. Higgins (1904), 

 Hawaii Agric. Exp. Sta., Bull. No. 7 ; The Banana 

 Industry in Jamaica, Wm. Pawcett (1903), Bull. 

 Botanical Dept., Jamaica, Vol. IX, part 9 ; Text-Book 

 of Tropical Agriculture, H. A. A. Nicholls (1892). 



