The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1884-07-02
PARKWAY FRUIT.
TROPICAL LUXURlES AT HOME
The Wonderful Growth of a Once Mod.
est Industry - New Orleans the
Grand Entrepot of the Luxu-
ries of the Tropics.

Never, said New York fruit deale,
recently, has there been a greater GUAM
tlty or better quality of tropical fruits
than that which is now coming to hand
Prices are SITTER, too, than usual, and the
sales are greatly in advance of last wear
suppose the receipts of bananas alone
TINS week will be nearly 100000 lunches
nave consignments Of nearly 10000 nv.
sell. The greatest increase in the wav
OF tropical fruits, however, is in lines
a Few years ago you could have cOunted
the imports of lines on your fingers
NOW you couldn't count them in any
way. Ihey are not only plentiful this
year, put they are fine in quality. They
are more desirable, too, for making a
Irult known. Last wear when
the supply was comparatively light. we
got ~ per barrel for them To-day we
can sell all we get for 80 a barrel All
lrult is better,and better prices are being
received. There are not quite so MANY
Plneapples coming to market as has been
known, but those that do come are fine
ana sell readily for prices ranging from
20 to $50 per hundred. Oranges are
nlgh, put good. The best bring IS. Lem
ohs hold their own as far as price is CON
cerned, but the demand is not so great
Coc0anuts, manages, bread fruit and such
stun are also selling in great Quantities
ana at good prices. A well-known
dealer in Burling slip said there
are more bananas this wear than
ever was known before. He
mad TO employ two sets ofmen to unload
IN! the vessels; one set works all day and
the other all night. While good prices,
me Irult and plenty is the case with re-
GARD 10 imported fruits, domestic fruits
are III some particulars behind previous
seasons. The strawberry has been
spoiled, by the sun. There has not been
more than a half crop of the up-riyer
berries. Then the late frost helped TO
nip the vines terribly. Berries that
grew on low land filled out and ripened
all right, but the vines on high ground
caught It. The last variety of the straw
berry, the Oswego, is now in market.
ana brings from u to u cents. They
nave come in soft and small.
haspoerrles have been in market
hve days. The natives are soft
ana OF medium size. They
come in cups that hold one-third of
quart, and sell from 10 to 10 cents cup.
Inc Antwerps are very much larger
and more solid and sell readily at Is |
cents. Currants are in market lust as |
early as usual but most of them arc
small. The peach crop will be biz |
one. y tree yields from one to four
baskets, or an average of two and a |
nan baskets to tree. The |
last few days we have had |
good ripening weather. WatermelOns |
from Florida and Georgia promise We'll |
for the products of the Northern vines |
ana so do the plums grown i'm Georgia. |
NatermelOnS bring from - cents to 30 |
cents each, and will readily sell for 81 |
per barrel. Peaches bring from 30 cents |
TO 500 per basket. The recent frosts |
have hurt the blossoms of both the pear |
and apple trees, but whether sufficient |
harm has been done to kill them |
or only retard their growth |
IS question. 1t il stated |
that eight years ago steamer |
WAS rarely seen in port of Spanish
Honduras, and all the trading was car
ried on in schooners. Now there are six !
steamers plying regularly between New |
Orleans alone and the Honduras ports. |
all engaged in the fruit trade, and there |
is not day but a steamer is seen land |
ing at short intervals along the coast and !
at the Bay islands taking on cargoes of
bananas, cocoanuts, pineapples, lines,
lemons and oranges. A single steam
sup VII DIlllS 10 NEW OTltallS l0,VDO 10
10000 punches Of bananas and an equal
number of cocoanuts. The effect of
! this trade has been TO stimulate
the cultivation of fruit in that
lazy country and increase the
price. Cocoanuts now bring $50
to $50 thousand on the coast, and ut
these prices the cultivation is very prof
table. Land is cheap; it may be had
for nothing in some places and for q
triile in the best regions. II requires
seven years for cocoanut tree to bear,
but from that time on it yields u never
failing crop of 40 to $50 nuts II year. The
banana bears crop of lunches nine
months from the time the sprout is
planted, and, as the soil is very rich, the
yield is large-larger than that of any
other article of food grown in the same
area. The bulk of the fruit trade from
Honduras, Guatemala and the Bay
islands comes to New Orleans, and Il
considerable number of Americans are
already settled in these places engaged
in the cultivation of cocoanuts and
bananas.