Years ago U. S. Consul Burchard complained of the banana business of the Honduras coast, that “A large proportion of the fruit-growers were formerly vacqueros in the interior, working on a salary of $30 to $40 a year. They are now owners of plantations, and have a steady income of $30 to $300 a month. The large amount of money distributed along this coast in exchange for fruit would make any civilized and temperate community prosperous and happy. There would be public and private schools, churches and banks, newspapers and libraries, parks and carriages, and handsome dwellings supplied with every comfort and luxury, surrounded by gardens of flowers, fruits and vegetables natural to this climate of perpetual seedtime and harvest.” So it soon will be, for already Italian and German, Englishman and American have accepted the invitation of a most kindly Nature, and the sincere welcome of friendly natives, and cottages peep here and there from out the glossy greenery, hammocks swing beneath the never-ceasing rustle of the palms in the blessed trade winds, and the fruit of Paradise gives to all a most generous support. But those who have good lands back from navigable water and remote from railroads, are not without hope of profit from bananas. For they may dry the fruit, pack it in dainty boxes with a liberal dusting of sugar to fill vacant spaces, and send it to the hungry millions of Europe. This has been successfully done by planters of Trinidad and of Jamaica, who, in at least some instances, found that they could sell the dried fruit at 16 to 20 cents a pound. Green bunches average nearly 60 pounds in weight, two-thirds of which is lost in peeling and drying, leaving about 20 pounds, which, at 15 cents, will give $3 per bunch. If the production of the green bananas and the drying should cost $2 a bunch, the income from an acre of bananas would be $288 yearly. In practice it has been found that the total cost and income of dried bananas give a net return of $2.72 per bunch, which equaled about $783 per acre. Both plátanos and guineos, or ordinary yellow bananas, may be profitably dried or made into flour. This will utilize the surplus fruit and such bunches as are too small to sell to advantage. Frequent mention is made by Stanley, of banana flour in his “In Darkest Africa.” He strongly indorses its nutritive qualities, and wonders that the natives did not appear to have discovered what invaluable nourishing and easily digested food they had in the plátano and banana. He expressed the conviction that, “If only the virtues of banana flour were publicly known, it is not to be doubted but it would be largely consumed in Europe. For infants, persons of delicate digestion, dyspeptics and those suffering from temporary derangement of the stomach, the flour properly prepared would be of universal demand. During my two attacks of gastritis a light gruel of this, mixed with milk, was the only matter that could be digested.”