Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1893 — The Banana Boom. [ARTICLE]

The Banana Boom.

New Orleans leads the country in the importation of bananas, and the trade has certainly helped New Orleans in many ways. The business has been fortunate from the start in enlisting enterprise on the part of ships, railroads and merchants, and the combination has been strong enough to bring success. A good deal of the enterprise has been shown in finding places in which to dispose of the fruit, and the quest has tried the quality of the importers. Bananas can now be regularly bought all over the country, and most of the fruit is distributed from this port. Special trains are run in every direction, fast time is imperative, and hustling agents place the orders ahead, so that there is no delay. A little delay often means total loss. The Pacific coast is one of the latest territories invaded. Mistakes have been made, and bananas have been sent to some places where a car load of bananas could not be sold in a month. It has taken time and money to find this out, and the enterprising speculators have often lost as high as SI,OOO on a consignment. The weak spots have been pretty well sifted out, however, and the far west promises to be one of the banana? strongholds. All this serves to introduce the fact that one firm has shipped ten car loads of bananas to the Pacific in the last two days. The Southern Pacific has several times carried as large a cargo of the fruit within the same space of time, but it is the largest quantity forwarded by one firm in forty-eight hours. The fruit will be distributed along the coast. Some of it will go as far north as Seattle, and Los Angeles will be the cargo’s southern boundary.—[New Orleans Picayune.