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Show 1 KNOW YOUR yr I NEIGHBOR ra.u. ; out of america's cornucopia: bananas Absence makes the heart grow fonder . . . and the absence of bananas from most American fruit-stands has made most of us, of late, think longingly of that delicious tropical fruit of yellowish yellow-ish color spotted with brown, whose skin strips to reveal a nutritious nu-tritious flesh-colored pulp. Considered, Con-sidered, of late years, the commonest com-monest of fruit, the banana's rarity rar-ity makes it once more art unusual unus-ual delicacv. bananas shipped from tropical' American countries to the United States and Europe, used to be of about $50,000,000 yearly, but today to-day wartime lack of shipping has severely restricted the banana trade, and expedients have been and are being adopted to bring temporary relief to the banana growers of the Western Hemisphere. Hemis-phere. Particularly affected have been the lading Caribbean exporters export-ers of bananas: Jamaica, Honduras, Hondur-as, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Cuba, Guatamala, Guadeloupe and Nicaragua and of these, more especially es-pecially Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua Nicarag-ua who count bananas among their three principal exports. The fact that the banana is rich in protein and thus has proved to be an excellent substitute for meat and fats, makes the scarcity of bananas at a time when they could have been an excellent source of ration-less protins, all the more deplorable. "It is, of course, widely used as a basic food in certain childhood diseases and ciliac disorders and hospitals and people afflicted with such disorders dis-orders have been placed in the priority list for distribution of the banana imports in this country." During the last World War, when a somewhat similar transportation trans-portation problem produced a drastic curtailing of the banana trade, most banana plantations just stopped cultivation and had no crops available when the situation situa-tion returned to normal. With such an experience in mind, the banana growers of today are, in spite of difficulties, keeping up their plantation cultivation and retaining as many laborers as possible. pos-sible. In the shadow of piles of green bunches that will alas! never be shipped, the banana-growers banana-growers of America are going on with their work, keeping it up gallantly, so that one day, when peace comes to the world .again, they may be able to supply the market with that delicious product prod-uct of their soil: the banana. Most authorities on the matter agree that the banana is not a native na-tive of the Western Hemisphere. Although the plant most probably originated in Asia, it thrives in tropical America, to which it was brought in 1516 from the Canaries by a Spanish missionary priest. It has become one of the principal products of the tropical countries of our continent, as important to their inhabitants as grain plants are to those living in cooler reg-' ions. The banana tree, a perennial gigantic herbaceous plant, has a most singular appearance with its slender stem, its toppet of large green leaves often man-size and its dense clusters of tightly-packed tightly-packed fruit. Of these there are more than thirty varieties that may be roughly divided into bananas, ba-nanas, those that are eaten raw, and plantains, a larger variety that requires cooking. No other class of tropical fruit is more widely known that the banana, with only the coconut ranking higher as far as economic value is concerned. Yet the days when bananas were wrapped . in cotton and sold for large sums as a rare delicacy in cold and temperate climates, are not so very far back. Only since the end of the 19th century cen-tury has the culture of bananas been greatly expanded in the West Indies, Central America, Mexico and Colombia, principally by a well-known fruit company which assured the highly prishable product pro-duct a proper handling and a well-organized well-organized transportation service. Banana bunches were loaded on specially constructed ships, heated heat-ed in winter and refrigerated in summer, and upon arrival at the port of destination they were put on the market without delay. Before the war, the value of |