FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
41 
The banana is another fruit that we 
have done very little with, and which has 
latent possibilities both for home con¬ 
sumption and commercially in a local 
sense. 
We pay handsomely for the fine ba¬ 
nanas furnished us from the South Amer¬ 
ican countries by the American Fruit 
Company. These usually sell for 50 to 60 
cents per dozen in our local markets, while 
the home grown product can be bought 
for half that much when obtainable. 
I recently read a little booklet on the 
banana, published by the American Fruit 
Company, which gave in detail the trou¬ 
ble and expense involved in supplying us 
with the excellent banana. They may be 
fully justified in the charges they make 
for their product, but why should we, here 
in Florida, pay such prices when we can 
grow bananas at home for about half that 
price ? 
There is a lot of land in Florida that 
will grow the banana, and it should not be 
an expensive crop to produce in a small 
way. 
I believe that in any county where the 
banana can be safely grown, sufficient soil 
can be found to produce fruit enough to 
supply the local markets in that county, 
and a few banana plantations in the State 
could easily take care of the Florida mar¬ 
kets and some of those in our neighbor¬ 
ing states. 
We have done much to develop and ex¬ 
tend our citrus industry and it will con¬ 
tinue to extend, always remaining the 
leading fruit crop in the State. However, 
it seems to me that there are great possi¬ 
bilities in some of these fruits I have men¬ 
tioned if we devote the same interest and 
energy to their production and market¬ 
ing. The Horticultural Society can aid 
materially in encouraging and fostering 
this development. 
