312 
* The great advantage," according to a New York correspondent, 
of the application of the desiccating process to bananas would be that 
nti 
use poe They are so green = oe on the voyage. When 
they arrive here it is calculated that they will be fit for table use. 
But they are very perishable property. If they are not consumed 
within a week after their arrival vast quantities rot and are thrown 
away. Strings of banana waggons perambulate the city seeking 
purchasers at “nominal prices, because if immediate sales cannot be 
effected the contents of the waggons will be a total loss. 
* [f we had a desiccating plant that could convert the fruit into dried 
fruit or flour we could largely increase our importations and turn out 
Bho which would command a sale all over the coast and in the 
The manufacture of banana meal in the United States would have a 
certain amount of protection from outside competi ition, for while there 
is no duty, or a small one, on the fresh fruit, there is a duty of 20 per 
cent, on banana meal as a manufactured product. 
JAMAICA. 
enormous production of bananas in Jamaica has already been 
nonoi, In this island bunches of a certain size only possess a marketable 
value. All others are practically useless except for consumption locally, 
and already the supply for this is greatly in excess of the demand. As 
Jamaica is at present the largest producer of bananas for export, it 
follows that the preparation of banana meal would have a wider scope in 
this island than PAM anywhere else, A sample of what was called 
banana flonr prepared in Jamaica was communicated to Kew in 1892. 
This was analysed by Ho aa Church, F.R.S., with the result already 
given. 
Some years ago plantain meal—as distinct from banana meal—was 
in use at the Publie Hospital in Kingston, and was considered a whole- 
some and nutritious food. It formed an excellent diet for patients 
suffering from di iarrhoea, dysentery, and allied ailments. This is seed 
firmed by experience in India. “Flour made out of 
dried in the sun is used in the form of chappatis (unleavened ens 
in certain parts of Tirhoot in cases òf dyspepsia with troublesome 
flatulence and acidity. I have known,” says a medical officer, * one 
ease in which it agreed remarkably well whenever a diet of plain sago 
and water brought on a severe attack of colic. The chappatis are 
taken dry with a little salt." There is always present in plantain meal a 
certain small per-centage of tannin, 
In a report on the Exhibits sent from Jamaica to mi ote 
og mie. 1893, Colonel Ward, C.M.G., the Commission 
the following remarks on the subject of ‘banana meal and pter 
bananas :— 
* The banana meal engaged the careful attention of several of the 
leading grocers in Chicago and elsewhere. One large house in Chicago, 
Sprague, Warner, & Co., after testing samples of this meal was so 
pleased with the result that it offered to undertake to introduce it as a 
food for infants and invalids, provided the producers would guarantee to 
Gee the necessary amount to advertise it extensively throughout the 
United States, Messrs. Sprague, Warner, & Co. estimated that a sum of 
