1."Will,"said Uncle Jack,as he handed the children a basket of fruit that he had brought them,"which kind of fruit do you like best?"
"Bananas,uncle."
"I thought so.Now,I want to know what you children can tell me about bananas."
2."I know they grow in hot countries,"said Lily,"and I think they grow in the woods."
"Some kinds do grow in the woods,"replied Uncle Jack;"but wild bananas are almost always too bitter to eat.The best fruit comes from trees planted in gardens or in fields."
3."And how do they grow,uncle?"asked Lily.
4."After a while the leaves open out,and hang down like branches.Other leaves grow up,curled just as tightly as the first.These also open out,and bend down;and others grow in their places.Then the plant really begins to look like a tree.It grows to the height of twenty or thirty feet,and its leaves are sometimes ten feet long,and two or three feet broad.The trunk is not hard wood,like that of the oak or the pine.It is nothing but leaf-stems packed closely together.
5."After a few months,a large purple bud appears in the centre of the leaves.Soon it grows out,and hangs down.It looks like a great purple heart.At last it opens,and there are seen rings and rings of bright little buds arranged around the stem.Soon each little bud bursts into a yellow blossom.Then comes the fruit.At first each banana is only a tiny green pod;but it grows and grows,till it is longer than any bean-pod you ever saw,and the cluster is very heavy."
6."How heavy?"asked Will.
"Oh,about half as heavy as you are,Will."
weight is not uncommon.Each banana weighs very little by itself;but sometime there are several hundreds of them on one stem.When gathered,they are put in a cool place,or are covered up with earth,just as farmers in this country cover up their potatoes sometimes.
The bananas that we get must be gathered while they are still green,or they would not keep long enough for the voyage."
7."What becomes of the tree,uncle?"asked Will.
The stem and the leaves die.But the root still lives;and all around the dead stem come up the young shoots,or baby plants,which,as I told you,are saved to plant again."
8."Do people in the hot countries eat many bananas,Uncle Jack?"asked Lily.
"Thousands of people live almost entirelyon them,Lily,just as people in some countries live on potatoes,and in others on rice.They have bananas for breakfast,dinner,and tea.Sometimes the people of South America cut the fruit into strips,then dry it in the sun,grind it,and make a kind of flour from it.A field of bananas will give more than a hundred times as much food as a field of wheat of the same size.
9."The young shoots,"concluded Uncle Jack,"that come up from the roots of the dead trees are some-times eaten as we do green vegetables.The juice of the leaves is used to dyecloth brown or black;and their long,tough fibresare woven into a beautiful kind of cloth called grass-cloth.One kind of banana produces afibre which is known as Manillahemp."
