BANANAS ARE NEWCOMERS 
layas, the highest mountains in the world, two thousand 
years ago. The East Indians had learned how to make 
wild plants bear fruit if they did not do so without help. 
Banana cultivation spread into and across Africa. It 
had reached the Canary Islands, off the African coast, 
before America was discovered. No one knows whether 
or not banana plants were grown for their fruit in 
America before the time of Columbus. The general be¬ 
lief is that the idea of getting fruit from banana plants 
was brought to Santo Domingo by the Spaniards and 
from there spread all over tropical America. 
At the time of the Civil War few people in the United * 
States had ever seen a banana. It was twenty years later 
that an occasional schooner began bringing a cargo of 
them to New York or Boston. They were well received. 
Steamboats were then displacing sailing ships in trade 
to the South. They could make the trip up from the 
tropics in less time. 
It was in 1899 that a company was organized to de¬ 
velop banana plantations and ships that were specially 
built to handle their crops. These ships were refrigerated, 
to make the fruit keep better. The biggest banana plan¬ 
tations in the world grew up along the coast of Central 
America, where the soil and rainfall were just what was 
needed. Now huge shiploads of them come north every 
week. The fruit is shipped all over the country in re¬ 
frigerator cars. So it happens that nearly always a bunch 
of bananas hangs on a hook in every fruit store in the 
country. 
191 
