Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1879 — Bananas [ARTICLE]

Bananas

Few people who see bananas hanging in the shops of fruit dealers think of them as more than a tropical luxury. The fact is, they are a staple article of food in some parts of the world; and, according to Humboldt, an acre of bananas wall produce as much food for a man as twenty-five acres of wheat. It is the ease with which bananas are grown that is the great obstacle to civilization in some tropical countries. It is so easy to obtain a living without work that no effort will ever be made, and the men become lazy and shiftless. AU that is needed is to stick a sucker into the ground, and it will at once sprout and grow, and ripen its fruit in twelve or thirteen months without further care, each plant having from seventy-five to 125 bananas; and, when that dies down after fruiting, new suckers spring up to taae its place. In regions where no foot ever reaches, bananas are found in all stages of growth, ripening their fruit every day and every month in the year.— Scientific American.