The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-04-04
MOBILE is A BUSY PORT
AND EXPORTS ARE LARGE

| so to $40 pc month; the latter from SIS
to IS per month. The officers of tae
American ships receive from 500 to $3.50
month, while those of the Norwegian
steamers receive from $50 to $50 per month.
The banana trust lands its fruit at New
, Orleans and Mobile About seven steam
ers week come in here, an average Of
one day, carrying from 1900 to 20 ooo
punches Of bananas each, which are worth
60 cents bunch on the docks. They come
from Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Riea.
ard Bocas del Zorro, Panama. These
steamers also bring cocoanuts. pineapples
| and oranges. Last year they brought
4,559,S72 punches of bananas, 1881. $50 cocoa
nuts and 1S0,0S4 crates of pineapples. The
imports of eocoanuts fell off about one
half from the previous year. when 4469.-
go were tossed over the docks of Mobile.
The trust handled altogether about 300O0.-
O0O punches of bananas last year at all the
ports, or about 3,O0O,OOOOOO bananas-an ay
erage of forty for every man, woman and
child in the United States.
Railway trains run alongside NJ tn
steamers, and punches of bananas arm
passed up from the matches and across
COlOrPd StaVa-
dores, OF whom about 90 are engaged at
the Mobile docks. An ordinary ship load
will fill two trains of twenty cars each
an average of about 5000 lunches To a
train. As soon as they are loaded thew
are started northward on schedule tim,
each train being accompanied by three
men, whose business it is to look after
the ventilation, the heating and the icing
OF the cars, according to the weather. 40
| 1hat the fruit will be kept in practically
the proper temperature from the moment
II starts at Mobile until it is dropped from
the train at its destination. The trust has
Its agencies or regular customers In all
the northern cities, commission men WIN
take so many car loads week. The ban
anas are picked green on the plantations.
but rlpen themselves while en- route IN
market. A banana is a self-hatcher II
contains a great deal of latent heat One
| punch warns another. The fruit men
here say that If pile of bananas are
placed in an ordinary room the tempera-
tnre will rise Immediately several degrees
and remain stationary until the fruit 10
removed, when 1t will drop to normal
again. In other words a bunch of
bananas is as good as gas stove.
Inc "bananc special" as fruit trains
| are called, has the right of way over ev-
| erything except limited passenger trains
and the railway companies contract to &C.
liver the fruit on nchedule time, paving
forfeit for every minute they are de-
layed. The trains make about forty miles
an hour, which enables the trust to de-
liver the fruit in Chicago, st. Louis. Cleve-
land, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Washing
ton, New York and other cities within ten
and often nine days from the time it Is
picked from the plantations in Central
America. The captains of the steamers
are given bounties for the good condition
OF their cargoes. for it is very easy to
rum cargo of bananas. If they are
locked up in close hold of a ship with
out ventilation or placed in an air-tight
car they will ripen SO rapidly by their own
heat that they will probably be spoiled
before reaching their destination.
| regular line of Norwegian steamers
| is bringing Is bringing cargoes of. sisaI
hemp from Yucatan, and it is shipped
through this port to xenia, Akron, Dav-
ton, Miamisburg and Cleveland, Ohio; Chi
cage and Peoria, ILL.,, Milwaukee, Peter
boro, Ontario, end other places, where IL
Is manufactured into rope and binding
Irvine. 1t is only a little way from Mo-
bile across to Yucatan. II YOU will loolr
at the map you will see that it is almost
| within jumping distance, and the steamers
| carry a good many passengers from this
city and other parts OF the SOUTH