THE STORY OF THE BANANA. 
23 
Bananas are inspected and weighed at the seaboard by men spe¬ 
cially appointed or licensed to do this work. The inspection is very 
rigid and any fruit showing the slightest evidence of damage or 
degree of maturity which forecasts early ripening is rejected for 
interior shipment and sold locally. The fruit is carefully weighed after 
it is loaded in the railroad cars or drays, as the case may be, the cars 
and drays being first weighed empty and the tare recorded. 
All bunches are carefully counted with checking machines giving 
accurate count of the bunches as they pass through the car door (the 
machines used at New Orleans and Mobile working automatically), 
and the passport of the green bunch is thereafter the railroad bill of 
lading instead of the ship’s manifest. 
BANANA SHIPMENTS BY RAIL TO INTERIOR POINTS. 
After having been thoroughly inspected and equipped before being 
placed for loading, the cars, as previously stated, are weighed empty, 
and when loaded are again weighed. These cars are then made up 
into trains which are dispatched over the various roads on fast 
schedules. Caretakers, called banana messengers, travel through 
with the trains, inspecting, taking temperatures, and arranging the 
ventilating devices in transit; or resident messengers, who perform 
the same service, meet these trains at regular intervals in order to 
inspect the fruit and arrange the ventilation. The shipper’s office at 
seaboard and consignees are kept in close touch with the banana 
cars through telegraphic advices from messengers en route and resi¬ 
dent messengers and superintendents of fruit houses, and through 
this service many losses incident to transportation are avoided. 
The fruit is carried into widespread territory in refrigerator cars 
which, in most cases, are equipped with false floors or floor-racks, 
providing an air space of four to six inches in depth under the load. 
By cooperation between shippers and the various railroads and car 
lines, these refrigerator cars have been brought up to a high standard, 
although much experimental work is still being done to improve 
design and construction. The banana traffic is of great importance 
to the railroads of the United States, a very large proportion of the 
importations being transported by them. Usually the haul is long 
and in the opposite direction to the bulk of other railroad traffic. 
During the warm season the cars are refrigerated. Constant 
refrigeration in transit is obtained by initial icing at seaboard and 
reicing en route as needed. Large cakes of ice are used, and the ven¬ 
tilators of the car are carried open to some extent to provide the 
necessary amount of fresh outside air to preserve the vitality of 
the fruit and at the same time to prevent over-refrigeration near the 
floor of the car. Large cakes of ice present to the atmosphere less 
surface in proportion to the weight than crushed ice or small cakes, 
