San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-02-18
About Bananas.

Most Of the bananas are raised in the
West Indies, the island of Jamaica
especially, though they grow freely
in all tropical lands. The fact of their
cheapness here shows that they must
be easily cultivated; and this is so, for
even the widest tribes in South Amer
lea and elsewhere succeed well in rails
ing them. lii the culture of this
luscious fruit 1t is not too much TO say
that nature seems to do all the work
herself, the share necessary for man
being almost nil, since all the labor
needed in cultivating the fruit consists
in setting out the suckers that form
the trees, nature then being left to do
the rest until the time to cut the fruit
arrives. This occurs within year
from planting, the plant, or rather the
tree, by this time having reached a
height of about ten feet. Where con-
siderable intelligence is brought into
requisition the suckers are set out reg
ularly to make plantations, with the
trees about fifteen feet apart.
According to one authority one
pound of bananas contains more nu-
triment than three pounds of meal or
as many pounds of potatoes, while as
food it Is in every sense superior to
the wheaton bread. Although it grows
spontaneously throughout the tropics,
when cultivated its yield is prodigious,
for an acre of ground planted with
bananas will return as much food ma
terial as thirty-three acres of wheat or
over one hundred acres of potatoes.
1t is not generally understood that
bananas--fried, baked, or roasted
are very appetizing and that sliced
and placed in a dish with alternate
slices of orange they make a most de-
licious dessert.
The antiquity of the banana is be-
yond dispute. Pliny, among other
ancient scribes, undoubtedly speaks of
it under the name of pala. After
writing upon the properties of the In
dian fig he says: There is another
tree in India, still larger and even
more remarkable for the size and
sweetness of its fruit, npon which the
sages and gymnosophists of India
live" True, some authorities contend
that this does not in reality apply to
the banana at all. but to another kind
of fruit.
Gerald, the old English botanist, in
reference to the banana, says it is
Adams apple tree, and that whichever
way the fruit may be cut the form of
a cross may be seen in it. Again, ira
dition further asserts that in Ceylon,
where, according to some, Paradise
was situated, there exists tremend-
Gus banana tree, the fruit of which
when cut transversely presents the
figure of a man crucified, and local
tradition asserts that from its huge
leaves Adam and Eve made garments
for themselves.
No fruit is more easy of digestion
and so healthful as the banana. 1t
takes on an average only one hour
and forty-tive minutes stay in the di-
gestive organs, and is the only fruit in
existence that requires such a short
time to do so; even ripe pears require
more, and the proverbial ripe straw
berry takes one hour longer.
To refer to the musa, or plantain
tree, is tantamount to opening the oft
disputed question as to whether it be
a native of southern Asia or of the
new world. 1t was generally consid-
cred as being native of the former
Until, as De Candolle states, Hum
boldt threw doubts upon its purely
Asiatic origin, terrifying his cOnten-
ton by an appeal to numerous writers
who maintained that the banana was
cultivated in America before the con-
quest.