Part 10 (1/2)

No, it is not a waste to cut down the stalks, for they die after bearing their fruit, and the smaller stalks about them will soon yield. Some of these stalks, you see, have but one bunch and some have two or three.

How odd the bunches look with the ”fingers” all pointing upward!

The banana leaves which the men are wrapping about the bunches are to protect the fruit. It bruises very easily and great quant.i.ties are lost on this account. They are not always wrapped, however.

When the fruit reaches the vessel, it is carefully inspected; and if not in just the right condition, it is refused. The bunches which are accepted, are taken into the hold of the s.h.i.+p and packed closely together. The planter receives for these from ten to thirty-five cents a bunch. Just think of buying eight or nine dozen of bananas for ten cents!

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 52.--Loading a Small Boat with Bananas to be taken to the ”Fruiter” in the Harbor.]

The men will not stop work until the s.h.i.+p is loaded. It may take twenty-four hours, and it may take twice that long, for a ”fruiter” will carry from fifteen to twenty thousand bunches of fruit.

In some parts of Central America, where there are no harbors, the planters float the fruit down the streams in canoes. The vessels anchor at some distance from the sh.o.r.e, and the bananas are taken out in boats called _dories_. They are hoisted up to the deck of the s.h.i.+p by means of pulleys, and then packed in the hold. The thousands of bunches which are bruised in handling are thrown into the sea.

While the northern ports get most of their supply of bananas from the West Indies, the Pacific coast states are supplied from Central America.

The ”fruiters” unload at New Orleans into trains, which carry the fruit to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other places. Banana trains also run from New Orleans to St. Louis, Chicago, and other parts of the country.

The fruit s.h.i.+ps have great pipes or ventilators, which carry the cool, fresh air from the sea down into the hold. Sometimes when they reach port it is so cold that the bananas cannot be taken out for a few days.

Wagons are loaded with the fruit at the wharves, and it is taken to warehouses where it gradually turns yellow. I am sure you have seen loads of the green fruit on the streets.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 53.--A ”Fruiter” taking a Cargo of Bananas.]

When the wholesale merchant sells the fruit, he often incloses each bunch in the rough material of which gunny sacks are made, and then puts a light, circular frame, made of strips of wood, over it. This, you see, protects the bananas. The grocer or fruit man takes hold of the frame without danger of mas.h.i.+ng the fruit, lifts the bunch, and hangs it upon a hook. The frame and sacking are then removed.

Bananas grow in the tropical parts of Asia and Africa and on many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. They are also raised in Florida, and they ripen in sheltered places in Southern California.

You have seen both yellow and red bananas. The red ones usually bring the higher price, but they do not keep well and are not so extensively raised as the yellow ones.

The banana is an important article of food. It is much more nouris.h.i.+ng than potatoes or even good, white bread. A flour or meal can be made from the fruit by drying it and then grinding.

HOW DATES GROW

Three thousand years before the shepherds followed the star to the manger at Bethlehem, the beautiful date palm was cultivated beside the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile rivers. The date was the bread of the people who lived in these fertile valleys, and it is an important article of food in northern Africa, Arabia, and Persia to-day.

Look at a map of northern Africa, and you will see that the great Sahara covers a large part of it. Here and there across the drifting sands wind caravan routes, traveled by camels ridden by strangely dressed men.

These routes lead to beautiful garden spots called _oases_. Here are wells and springs, with little streams flowing in the shade of fig, date palm, and other trees. The people who dwell within these groves beside the cooling waters look out upon the desert as the inhabitants of an island might look upon the boundless sea. Find some of these oases and learn why they are fertile. The people who live in these oases depend upon dates for their living. The dreary journey from the coast to the interior is made to procure quant.i.ties of this fruit, which are wanted by the outside world.

If you were to make a journey in a desert country, you would find that you could not carry such articles of food as you would have if you remained at home. The suns.h.i.+ne beats down fiercely, the springs and wells are far apart, and the patient animals must not be overloaded. The chief article of food carried is the date. A ma.s.s is packed together until it is so hard that pieces are chopped off with a hatchet when they are wanted.

Like the cocoanut palm, the date palm rises to a great height, sometimes fifty or sixty feet, without branches. It ends in a crown of beautiful feathery leaves which droop downward. These leaves may be ten or fifteen feet long. Many of them stand edgewise. Unlike most trees, the trunk does not steadily increase in size, and you can tell nothing as to the age of the tree by its diameter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 54.--Date Palms loaded with Ripe Fruit, Biskra, Algeria. (Year Book U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1900.)]

In its wild state many shoots spring from the base of the tree. These may grow as high as the parent stalk, so that in time a jungle or thicket is formed.

The flowers, which are clear white, grow in cl.u.s.ters. There are from six to twenty of these cl.u.s.ters on a tree, each of which produces a bunch of dates. The female tree bears the fruit. The blossoms are pollinated both by the wind and by man.