246 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST 
[Oct.  I,  1896. 
“ So  it  is.  Your  psople  arc  lazy  I”  tlie  governor 
retorted.  *•  So  I cannot  mend  the  roads  you  com- 
plain about.  Your  people  will  not  work,  for  they 
have  only  to  plant  a little  today,  and  then  for  years 
pluck  and  eat.  If  they  were  hungry,  perhaps  they 
might  work  a little.” 
“They  have  the  contented  mind  with  the  con- 
tinual feast,”  said  the  consul. 
“ It  is  right,”  replied  Vallejo,  laughingly,  “ for  was 
it  not  with  the  banana  that  tlie  evil  one  tempted 
our  mother  Eve  ? The  sly  rascal  knew  that  the 
ease  with  which  she  could  make  it  ready  for  the 
eating  would  tempt  a housewife  when  nothing  else 
could.  Wasn’t  Adam  led  to  his  downfall,  to  the 
lasting  regret  of  all  who  hate  work,  not  by  the  blan- 
dishments of  Eve — for  she  was  already  his  spouse — 
but  by  the  tempting  appearance,  by  the  charming 
fragrance,  and  the  bewitching  flavour  of  this  fruit?” 
“ That  the  banana  w'as  the  true  tree  of  knowledge 
is  shown  by  its  name,”  the  consul  remarked 
gravely.  “ 3Iusa  sapientuni  can  surely  mean 
nothing  else  than  the  ‘fruit  of  wisdom.’  And 
that  it  was  the  tree  of  paradise  is  further 
proven  by  the  name  which  men  of  science 
have  given  it;  Mitsa  imradisaica  can  mean  nothing 
else.  Less  evidence  than  this  has  served  well  enough 
to  burn  many  a heretic  at  the  stake  in  the  good  olden 
times.” 
“If  such  doubters  do  exist,”  he  continued,  “they 
may  satisfy'  themselves  as  to  the  truth  by  simply  cut- 
ting across  a ripe  banana  and  finding  in  it  the  sign 
of  the  cross.  I doubt  if  better  evidence  was  ever 
shown  to  prove  that  it  is  in  very  truth  the  forbidden 
fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  which  has  been  called 
the  ‘apple  of  Eden.’  ” 
In  the  homes  of  dwellers  in  tropical  America  and 
other  tropical  countries  always  hang  bunches 
of  bananas,  some  of  them  ripe  and  sweet, 
moi'e  of  them  so  green  as  to  be  fit  only 
for  boiling  or  for  baking,  in  which  state  they  are 
to  these  folk  what  potatoes  are  to  inhabitants  of 
northern  lauds,  as  they  may  well  be,  indeed,  for  the 
chemical  make-up  of  one  is  very  like  that  of  the 
other,  being  : 
Water 
Bananas. 
75.71 
Potatoes. 
75.77 
Carbonaceous  or  fiesb-making 
material 
‘20.1d 
20.70 
Albuminoids  or 
matter 
fat-making 
t • • 
1.71 
1,7;) 
Woody  fibre  .. 
• • • 
. 1.74 
.75 
Ash 
. . • 
. .71 
.1)7 
For  uncounted 
centiuies  bananas  have 
been  the 
chief  food  for 
millions  of 
people,  as 
they  are 
this  day  of  multitudes  of  dwellers  in  India, 
in  Asia  and  in  Africa,  in  tropical  isles  and 
in  the  three  Americas.  And  everything  cats  the 
banana — chickens,  cows  and  pigs,  cats,  dogs  and 
cattle,  mules,  horses  and  babies,  all  kinds  of  live  stock  ; 
in  short,  the  very  birds,  and  beasts  of  the  forest  and 
the  fishes  in  the  streams,  all  eat  the  banna  when  they 
can  get  it.  And  it  is  good  for  them  that  this  is  so, 
for  it  is  an  exceedingly  healthful  food,  which  prevents 
constipation  and  resultant  evils. 
PlatiHOs,  which  English  folk  misname  plan- 
tains, are  a kind  of  bananas  for  cooking- 
Most  platinos  are  firm  of  flesh,  thick 
of  body,  and  not  good  to  eat  raw.  Some  of  these 
varieties  are  big,  yellow  fellows,  as  thick  as  one’s 
wrist  and  nearly  as  long  as  a man’s  forearm.  Others 
are  short  and  thick  as  to  body  and  thin  as  to  skin. 
When  fried  these  taste  like  fried  green  apples  ; when 
stewed  with  a dash  of  lemon  or  of  limejuice,  their 
flavor  is  like  that  of  stewed  peaches  ; when  roasted 
they  are  tender,  juicy,  slightly  tart,  yet  sweet  enough 
they  are  when  baked  in  an  oven  with  a dressing  of 
butter.  All  these  are  yellow  or  red. 
Soups,  porridge  and  puddings,  bread,  cakes  or  bis- 
cuit may  all  be  made  of  banana  flour,  which  is  said 
to  be  BO  easily  digested  that  it  may  be  safely  fed 
to  babes  1 ml  invalids.  I’ies  have  been  made  of 
platinos  with  a slice  of  lemon,  of  limo  or  of  pine- 
apple, to  give  more  tartness  than  the 
banana  pofscsscs  A syrup  equal  to  that  of 
jh^  maple  of  the  Wwth  is  of  banauas, 
and  the  fruit  stewed  in  syrup  of  the  sugarcane 
makes  a conserve  found  on  many  a table  in  the 
tropics.  That  variety  commonly  seen  in  the  North 
is  often  stewed  and  stirred  until  it  becomes  like  a 
thin  apple  sauce.  Taken  before  dinner  it  dulls  the 
keen  edge  of  that  unscrupulous  appetite  which  comes 
of  a day  01  canoeing,  or  of  tramping  through  cool  and 
pleasant  forests  that  roraancists  have  deceived  us  into 
believing  are  tangled,  steaming  jungles. 
Those  who  best  know  the  different  members  of  the 
Musa  family  will  have  no  difficulty  in  remembering 
several  other  uses  to  whicli  they  are  put.  The  ten- 
der, unopened  leaves  make  a soft,  bland  dressing  for 
blisters  of  scalds  or  of  burns,  and  the  old  leaves  make 
fair  thatching  for  temporary  roofs.  The  dried  leaves, 
torn  into  shreds,  are  used  as  a packing  for  merchan- 
dise, and  the  ashes  of  leaf  and  stock  are  used  as  soap  for 
washing  clothes  and  inmany  of  the  processes  of  dyeing. 
The  leaves  of  the  “ wax  banana”  are  coated  under- 
neath by  a white  powder,  which  is  a wax  that  has 
long  been  a valued  commodity. 
Eanana  leaves  serve  a few-  other  useful  purposes,  for 
of  them  are  made  tough  paper,  from  the  thickness 
of  thinnest  tissue  to  thickest  cardboard ; clothing, 
hats  and  brushes,  mats  and  hammocks.  Millions  of 
pounds  of  banana  fibre,  misnamed  Manila  “ hemp,” 
are  each  3'ear  brought  to  the  United  States 
or  taken  to  Europe  and  spun  into  cordage 
from  the  fineness  of  silk  up  to  the  size  of  the  twine 
with  which  mvriads  of  farmers  in  the  States  bound 
millions  of  sheaves  last  harvest,  to  the  bigness  of 
mammoth  cables;  and  many  a dainty  handkerchief 
and  bit  of  fine  lace  has  been  woven  from  the  fibre 
of  banana  leaves  by  the  deft  fingers  of  the  women 
of  South  America  and  the  far  East. 
THE  INDIAUUBBEU  INDUSTRY. 
The  United  States  Consul  at  Barmen,  in  a recent 
report  to  his  Government,  sa5's  that  the  world’s  con- 
sumption of  india-rubber  has  been  growing  so  enor- 
mously during  the  past  few  years,  that  the  time  does 
not  seem  to  be  far  distant  when  the  demand  will 
greatly  exceed  the  supply.  Already  the  difficulty  of 
getting  a sufficient  quartity  of  rubber  to  meet  the 
current  needs,  has  led  consumers  to  fear  that  there 
will  be  au  early  famine.  One  of  the  chief  causes  of 
this  heavy  increase  in  consumptio:;  is  of  course  the 
employment  of  the  material  in  the  bicycle  trade,  and 
long  before  the  limit  has  been  reached  in  this  direc- 
tion, another  field  is  being  opened  up  in  the  use  of 
pneurnatic  tyres  upon  vehicles  of  all  descriptions. 
The  United  States  is  one  of  the  largest  consumers  of 
india-rubber  at  tlie  present  time,  but  that  country  is 
followed  pretty  closely  by  Great  Britain.  The  other- 
markets  follow  a lorg  way  behind,  but  the  quantity 
imported  by  France  and  Germany  is  a no  mean  pro- 
portion of  the  trade  done  in  this  material.  It  is 
certain  that  the  threatened  famine  in  india-rubber — 
or,  moi-o  properly  speaking,  caoutchouc — would  not 
be  so  imminent  as  it  is,  if  the  owners  of  the  planta- 
tions in  West  Africa  and  elsewhere  had  been  a little 
less  reckless  in  their  methods  of  tapping  the  trees. 
In  order  to  more  easily  get  at  the  milky  juice,  it  has 
long  been  the  custom  in  West  Africa,  and  in  some  of 
the  South  American  States,  to  cut  down  the  trees 
bodily,  so  that  the  collectors  secured  only  one  lot  of 
the  caoutchouc  from  each  tree  instead  of  a large 
niunber  of  periodical  yields.  The  prevalent  idea  that 
this  policy  was  justified  by  the  almost  unlimited  range 
of  forests  producing  caoutchouc,  was  very  soon  found 
to  be  groundless,  and  stringent  regulations  have  been 
made  to  prevent  the  cutting  down  of  the  trees  in  many 
countries,  and  owners  are  going  to  a great  deal  of  ex- 
pense by  laying  out  new  plantations,  which  must  take 
several  years  to  come  to  maturity.  In  the  mcantimo 
efforts  arc  being  made  to  compensate  for  these  limited 
supplies  by  producing  artificial  india-rubber,  and 
several  new  processes  have  lately  been  brought  out  in 
France  and  Germany,  though  without  as  yet  pro- 
ducing india-rubber  of  a suitable  quality  upon  a com- 
mercial scale.  The  most  obvious  way  of  meeting  the 
demand  for  this  material  is  to  give  more  attention  to 
some  of  the  other  rubber-producing  trees  that  are  tij 
