Edible Products. 



214 



[March, 1910. 



his fruit, unless it is through some cen- 

 tral association, and furthermore steam- 

 ship companies cannot be induced to 

 put on a line of steamers unless a 

 sufficiently large number of bunches is 

 guaranteed, and sufficiently good secu- 

 rity i9 forthcoming. The banana indus- 

 try of Jamaica is now chiefly in the 

 hands of large growers, while the 

 cultivations in Central America are 

 under the control of large companies 

 that have many thousands of acres 

 under single managements. 



In Surinam, the nucleus of the indus- 

 try is held by the Government itself. 

 There are now about 5,000 acres under 

 banana cultivation in that country, and 

 practically none are cultivated by 'small 

 growers.' The greater part of these 

 bananas are at present grown upon 

 lands that were abandoned from sugar- 

 cane cultivation some 50 or 60 years 

 ago, and upon lands that have in recent 

 years been abandoned from cacao culti- 

 vation by reason of the witch-broom 

 disease. 



Finally, means for transport must be 

 obtained. It depends of course as to 

 what market it is intended to ship to and 

 as to what variety would be the most 

 suitable to^grow. The American market 

 will only take the Gros Michel or 

 Jamaican banana, while the English 

 market favours the dwarf or Chinese 

 variety. 



The Jamaica and Surinam trade, as 

 also the greater part of the Central 

 American, is in the hands of the United 

 Fruit Company. They may be said to 

 control the whole of the market in Gros 

 Michel or Jamaican bananas. It must, 

 therefore, be assumed that this company 

 would have to be approached if a suc- 

 cessful trade were hoped to be built up 

 with America. 



The United Fruit Company has a 

 most efficient organization in all the 

 banana-producing countries with which 

 it is connected, and is, at present, rather 

 inclined to favour extension of oper- 

 ations in the fields in which it is 

 thoroughly established than to look for 

 new fields to work up, unless exception- 

 ally favourable terms are offered. Any 

 business man, on carefully examining the 

 Surinam contract must note that the 

 Company requires particularly favour- 

 able conditions. The whole of the 

 organization was left to the Surinam 

 Government, who had to guarantee that 

 a certain area would be planted within 

 a certain period, and that the shipments 

 would reach a certain size. It is more 

 than probable that similar conditions 

 would be required in the case of any 



similar contract for bananas from this 

 Colony, and it would therefore be neces- 

 sary for a considerable area to be 

 guaranteed to be planted in bananas 

 before such a contract could be entered 

 upon. For the American market it 

 would seem that only the United Fruit 

 Company could be approached, as other 

 companies could not compete with such 

 a monopoly as the United Fruit Com- 

 pany holds. 



Could bananas be shipped satisfac- 

 torily to England? They are being 

 shipped in large quantities from Jamaica 

 and Costa Rica, but the dwarf or Chinese 

 variety from the Canaries still com- 

 mands universal favour. An examin- 

 ation of the few details of the Barbados 

 experiment would indicate that the 

 Chinese variety of bananas can be 

 shipped satisfactorily in cold storage, 

 if packed in cotton wool in crates. A 

 direct steamship service capable of ac- 

 complishing the journey in 10 or 12 days, 

 would be necessary, and the rates of 

 freight would have to be sufficiently low 

 to afford a reasonable margin of profit 

 to the growers. The rates of freight 

 from the Canaries during 1907 ranged 

 from Is. to Is?. 3d. per crate, but this was 

 considered high and caused a certain 

 amount of dissatisfaction among the 

 growers. 



In conclusion, the methods of culti- 

 vation in vogue in this colony would be 

 entirely unsuited for the successful culti- 

 vation of bananas for an export trade, 

 and a careful consideratiDn of the 

 Jamaica methods, a brief account of 

 which is appended herewith, and of the 

 leaflet lately issued by the Board of 

 Agriculture is strongly recommended. 

 The opinion formed by the Department 

 of Science and Agriculture is that, sup- 

 posing a sufficiently large area were put 

 in banana cultivation under the control 

 of a strong organization to form a 

 nucleus for the industry, the smaller 

 growers could, with careful attention 

 to cultivation, etc, be encouraged to 

 plant bananas and would make a fair 

 profic. Without such a nucleus, how- 

 ever, the smaller growers could not 

 themselves establish a successful in- 

 dustry. 



The Barbados Experiment. 

 In May, 1902, the Superintendent of the 

 Royal Mail Steam Packet Company at 

 Barbados, invited the Imperial Com- 

 missioner of Agriculture to test a new 

 banana carrier by which it was proposed 

 to carry bananas from the West Indies 

 to England. It was found that the 

 dwarf or Chinese bananas could satis- 

 factorily be carried in the ordinary hold 



