July, 1911.] 



23 



Edible Products. 



and now when any planter in Jamaica 

 speaks of 1 banana,' he means this variety 

 and this alone. 



The Agricultural Society of the time, 

 on receipt of the first bunch of this 

 banana grown by Mr. Pouyat, awarded 

 him a doubloon for introducing so valu- 

 able a variety into the Island. 



From this one plant have grown the 

 millions of bananas that are now culti- 

 vated in Jamaica, while the commercial 

 plantations of Central America and of 

 Cuba are, we believe, of the same origin. 



For size, flavour, symmetry of bunch 

 and good shipping qualities no other 

 banana yet tested in Jamaica can com- 

 pare with the Martinique. In fact, it 

 may be stated that no other variety of 

 banana capable of commercial exploit- 

 ation in competition with the present 

 commercial fruit of Jamaica is known 

 to exist. 



Other varieties oj Banana.^-Some 

 thirty varieties of bananas have been 

 under trial at Hope for the past 7 or 

 8 years. Many of these are of high re- 

 pute in India, Java and the East. 



Several are undoubtedly the same 

 banana under different names. The 

 ' Apple ' banana, with a pleasant sub-acid 

 flavour, is an excellent fruit for the 

 private grower, but is quite unsuited for 

 shipment. 



Before the fruits are ripe they become 

 so fragile at the stalk that at the 

 slightest touch the fingers become 

 detached. 



The ' Lady's Finger ' and some of the 

 Eastern varieties that closely resemble 

 it are dainty dessert fruits, but not 

 capable of commercial exploitation. 



Some varieties such as the ' Ram 

 Kela,' a red banana highly thought 

 of in India, when grown in Jamaica 

 have been found quite unsuitable for 

 the local palate and of a very indiges- 

 tible constituency. 



A small fancy trade might be done in 

 some of the red bananas and the small 

 dessert fruits, but it is doubtful whether 

 there is a single variety in the whole 

 collection under trial by this Depart- 

 ment, that it would be wise for any 

 planter to cultivate to any extent. 



The variety 1 Cavendishii ' or the 

 Chinese Banana is grown to a certain 

 extent in the hills for local consumption. 

 When grown in the plains in Jamaica it is 

 too sweet and lacks flavour. This variety 

 is best suited to sub-tropical conditions. 

 It cannot be shipped ' naked,' and is 



quite inferior for all commercial pur- 

 poses in Jamaica as compared with the 

 Martinique. 



Banana Soils. 

 In the early stages of the industry 

 in Jamaica ' banana land ' was accepted 

 to mean a soil in which without drainage, 

 without tillage, and by a superficial pro- 

 cess of clearing and, perhaps, burning 

 before the suckers were planted, a good 

 yield of commercial fruit was obtainable 

 by the grace of Natuie alone. 



Where fine alluvial deposit has been 

 reinforced with the humus from a pro- 

 longed growth of forest or ruinate, and 

 the district is a seasonable one, such old 

 fashioned 'banana land' is still to be 

 found in Jamaica, but in rapidly decreas- 

 ing extent. To a superficial observer of 

 the initial conditions of the bauana 

 industry in Jamaica it might have seem- 

 ed as though the banana was pre- 

 eminently a product of virgin soils, and 

 that as the first flush ot the stored 

 fertility of these soils became exhausted, 

 the growing of bananas would be diffi- 

 cult if not impossible. Under these 

 conditions the vast area of virgin soil 

 on the Spanish Main would appear 

 certain to displace the resources of so 

 small and long settled an island as 

 Jamaica for the profitable cultivation 

 of the banana. 



Jamaica, however, in starting the 

 bauana industry.had behind its resources 

 the traditions and enterprise of many 

 generations of English and Scottish 

 agriculturists of the first rank who had 

 created the lucrative sugar industry in 

 the old days, and had battled with 

 adversity when that industry was so 

 seriously prejudiced by the operation 

 of the Continential Bounties on beet 

 sugar. To planters of this grade, the 

 cultivation of banana soon became more 

 than the voluntary bounty of Nature in 

 smiling on the favourable conditions of 

 soil and of climate. 



To men who had grown cane on the 

 dry plains of St. Catherine by the use 

 of irrigation, it was but a natural 

 sequence to attempt the cultivation of 

 the banana under the same conditions. 



Now every drop of water available 

 from the resources of the Rio Cobre 

 System is being utilised in this manner 

 and bananas are being produced on 

 10,000 acres of laud that was formerly of 

 nominal value for grazing purposes. 

 These soils would be classed as natural 

 banana soils, and the only condition 

 required to make them productive is 

 irrigation. Had they been in Portland 

 and St. Mary these soils would have 



