Every day, as you walk along the streets you see great bunches of bananas hanging in front of fruit and grocery stores. You find them at the corner fruit stand, and peddlers carry them from house to house. Although bananas are so common now and so cheap that all can afford to eat them, this was not so when your grandparents were children. In those days the fruit was regarded as quite a luxury, for there were few people engaged in carrying it from its tropical home to the cities of our country. Now many small but swift ships, called "fruiters," carry on this business. They get their cargoes of fruit in the West Indies or Central America, and within a week after sailing they are unloading at New Orleans, Baltimore, New York, or Boston. If the number of bananas which reach our country each year were equally distributed, each person would receive twenty-five. [Illustration: FIG. 50.--A Banana Tree.] Let us get aboard that wonderful train upon which all may travel free of cost, which runs equally well upon land and water. We step off right in the center of a banana plantation on the island of Jamaica. Yes, these are banana trees all about you. See how long and broad the leaves are and how gracefully they droop! Some of them are ten or fifteen feet long; almost as long as the trees are tall. The trees, you see, are simply stalks from which the leaves unroll. Here you can see some just starting out. They are rolls of bright green, pointing upward, each starting from the center of the stalk. No, the leaves were not torn in that way by the pickers. The wind sometimes whips them into ribbons, for they are very tender. These stalks growing from the base of the main stem are called "suckers" here; in Costa Rica they are called "bits." You remember that there are no seeds in bananas. It is these "suckers" that are planted when a farmer wants to start a plantation. They are set out when two or three feet high and within a year they bear fruit. What did I tell you about the length of time required for the cocoanut to bear? It is but four years since the trees in this plantation were single "suckers," standing about fifteen feet apart. Now there are several stalks grouped about each parent plant, and the beautiful leaves, touching overhead, form shaded aisles of green. [Illustration: FIG. 51.--A Banana Plantation.] Of course a great number of "suckers" are not allowed to grow together. Keeping these cut down is called "cleaning the plantation." Now let us examine the fruit on this tree beside us. You see that the great cluster or bunch is made up of smaller bunches. These are called "hands," and each banana is spoken of as a "finger." Let us count the "hands" in this bunch. This is an unusually large one, for it contains thirteen. Nine "hands" make a _full bunch_. As you see, there are from ten to twenty "fingers" in a "hand." Buyers will seldom take bunches of less than six "hands."