THE STORY OF THE BANANA. 
9 
I lie quality and condition of the fruit and its prompt and careful 
handling are the all-important factors. To dispatch the modern type 
of refrigerator steamer at regular and frequent intervals, with a cargo 
of from 40,000 to 75,000 stems of prime, freshly cut fruit, requires a 
vast area of good producing land, connected with the tropical port by 
railways whose total length may extend into the hundreds of miles. 
The railways in turn are fed by a still more extensive system of light 
tram lines. The fruit in some instances is subject to a railway haul 
of 70 miles. The riding, work, and pack animals required on the 
farms run into thousands, and a small army of employees and 
laborers is constantly engaged. Each plantation must have good 
telephone communication with its district headquarters and with a 
central office for the prompt distribution of cutting advices, control 
of deliveries, and operation of the fruit trains. The central office in 
turn communicates by cable or radio with the head offices and with 
the ships en route, and every effort is made to have the arrival of the 
fruit and the steamer at loading port coincide, as well as to have the 
fruit after it is cut put aboard the ship in the briefest possible time. 
The whole system forms a most interesting example of organization 
and attention to detail. 
DEVELOPING THE NEW PLANTATION. 
The first and most important step is the selection of the land. 
Many factors must be considered, such as climate, soil, rainfall, drain¬ 
age, liability to damage by floods and hurricanes, and the feasibility 
of securing labor and supplying transportation. 
The plantation is developed from virgin land, covered, as a rule, 
with forest and a dense tropical undergrowth. After the land has 
been selected and the surveying and drainage ditches completed, it is 
underbrushed, lined, and staked, after which it is ready for planting. 
Underbrushing, as the name implies, consists in chopping down the 
undergrowth with cutlasses (“machets”) so that one may move 
about <freely between the trees. Lining and staking consists in care¬ 
fully laying out and marking the land with stakes set at the distance 
at which it is intended to plant the bananas, so that the young plan¬ 
tation will have regularity and orderliness. The distance between 
the stakes varies according to soil and climatic conditions. In Central 
America the planting distance is usually from 18 to 24 feet each way, 
and in Cuba land Jamaica, owing to the small growth of the tree, 
about|12|by|12/feet. As the plantation develops the underground 
rootstocks send up new suckers, or young plants, on all sides of the 
original plant. Only a few of these young plants are allowed to 
develop to maturity, but in an old plantation each hill, or mat, 
consists of from half a dozen to a dozen plants standing more or less 
