The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-08

they can be had many months after the
branches have been taken from the vine
The great beauty of bunch of grapes
when it appears on an English dinner
table is in the waxy bloom which covers
the grape. and by this method of preserv-
ing punches this bloom can be preserved
intact.
The handlers of Western beef in Phila-
delphia and other Eastern cities are be-
coming alarmed at the prospect of meat
famine before the summer is at it's height
This state of affairs is attributed to the
scarcity of good live cattle in the West,
owing to the failure of the corn crop as
well as to the unusually heavy exporta-
tons made recently. On Wednesday of
last week in Chicago live cattle sold for
So 70 per hundred. The price one year ago
was 81 Is. The advance of 81 so on live
weight means an advance OF almost i've
cents per pound on dressed beef.
One Pendleton (Or.) firm has just fin
ished shearine 5000 sheep, which they have
been feeding this winter, and will ship
them to Chicago in about month. Dur
ing the winter to these 5000 sheep there
was fed in round numbers Is, 600 bushels
of wheat and 500 loa2s of straw besides a
small amount of hay.
1t is queer that so little is known about
this fruit in the United States, for it is
really one of the oldest plants known to
mankind. The banana is known to botan-
lists as the Musa sapientum, but the plan
tain as Musa Paradisica, or the apple of
Paradise. The Spaniards call it the plan
tano on account of its broad spreading
leaf, deriving the name from the Latin
word from which we have taken our word
plant. The delicious, seedless fruit is
known in all tropical countries. 1t was a
favorite with the Greeks and Romans.
Pliny grew elated over the plantano and
Alexander declared them boon to his
soldiers.
The plant grows wild in Siam and Cey-
lon and in the Philippine Islands, but was
evidently brought to the western hemis-
phere by the Portuguese, as there is no
native name for it in all the native Ian
guages in this continent. 1t is said by
Donnelly that the plantain originated in
Atlantis, the mysterious continent that
took McGinty dive into the depths be-
tween Spain and the West Indies, taking
the Garden of Eden down with it.
Be that as it may, it is curious truth
that its scientific name embalms the fact
that all the Orient legends call this fruit
either the apple of Paradise or Adams fig,
the identical fruit with which Eve tempted
Adam. Every one who is acquainted with
this luscious fruit will at once admit that
this temptation was tenfold greater than
anything in the Ben Davis or russell line
could possibly have been. If Eve simply
ate her fruit first and threw the Feelings
on the ground, where Adam stepped on
them, no wonder he fell, for the big plan
tain peeling has many advantages over its
relative-the banana-ln seeing that sim
ners do not stand on slippery places.
The average fruit-buyer does not know
whether bananas or plantains grow on
trees as high as pine or run as vine on
the ground like the pumpkin. tits difficult
at first to tell either the fruit or the tree of
the banana from the plantain.
The banana is quite small compared
with its older relative, and there is no re-
semblance whatever in taste. The banana
is best raw. The plantain is unfit to eat
unless cooked. To eat it raw would be as
bad as eating pumpkin raw. When ripe it
looks like banana, but is twice as large.
The cross-section, too, is more triangular,
the pulp firmer in texture and not so
mealy. In nourishment the accumula-
ton of starch and sugar in the golden, OBJ
long pulp makes it equal, il not superior,
pound for pound, to our best Dakota wheat
bread.
The tree is the queen of the tropics, start
ing from the soil like Gala, from a
tuberous root. Several stalks are sent up
from this root nine or ten months after
planting. When the first stalk is ripening
others are three-quarters grown, so that
from three to five punches are obtained
from each plant every year. 1t requires
less labor than the banana to raise, and
bears for twenty years. 1t grows SO lux
uriantly that the ground which will pro-
duce one bushel of wheat will yield 700