Some of the tourists whom I met had driven from the quaint little town of Falmouth to Montego Bay, a distance of 24 miles along the coast. They were charmed with the beautiful views, especially the grand sunset as they approached Montego Bay; and I do not think I have ever seen more lovely colouring anywhere than here where the exquisitely soft tints seem to melt into each other. The Government is waking up seriously to the fact that the harbour of Falmouth should be improved, and the people of Trelawny have voiced their grievances to some tune since £12,000 are to be spent in deepening the channel.
The Hon. L. C. Shirley, at the last meeting of the Parochial Board, very emphatically urged the need of shipping facilities. He had seen in the days of sugar prosperity five or six barques in the harbour at one time, but, said he, “Sugar and rum being at their lowest ebb, something else must be done. Bananas meant money, but if we have no facilities for shipping what would be the good of planting?”
One of the best authorities in the island on agricultural possibilities and prospects informed me, not long since, that there were old sugar estates to be bought in the neighbourhood of Falmouth for a mere song, which, if purchased now that there is the certainty of improving the harbour, would in a year or so return 100 per cent. if turned into banana plantations. I rather wished I were a man with a capital of £2,000, but when I asked if banana-growing required much experience—
“Yes,” said he, “A young fellow should get on a banana estate for a year at least, before laying out his capital.”
“It is a matter of learning which soil is particularly adapted,” I suggested.
“Not only that,” he rejoined, “but an inexperienced man has no idea how to manage his labourers, and there are always sharks ready to take advantage of his ignorance.”
Which latter I knew to be sapient wisdom, from the unhappy experience of a youthful relative whose gullibility was apparent to an antipodean swindler, with the result that the sorrow-stricken youth learnt wisdom at the expense of a lightened purse.
There is nothing chimerical in the success of the banana trade. America statistically absorbs most of this produce. On all sides we hear of the variety of ways it is useful as an article of diet, whilst its nutritive powers are unquestioned.
America largely buys banana flour. In its unripe stages it is more properly a vegetable. Green bananas mashed and eaten like potatoes form most useful food, whilst ripe bananas, dried and put up in boxes like figs, are both wholesome and satisfying. From the 1st of April 1902 to 10th January 1903, 90,204,597 bunches of bananas were exported from Jamaica.