Bananas grow in the tropical parts of Asia and Africa and on many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. They are also raised in Florida, and they ripen in sheltered places in Southern California. You have seen both yellow and red bananas. The red ones usually bring the higher price, but they do not keep well and are not so extensively raised as the yellow ones. The banana is an important article of food. It is much more nourishing than potatoes or even good, white bread. A flour or meal can be made from the fruit by drying it and then grinding. HOW DATES GROW Three thousand years before the shepherds followed the star to the manger at Bethlehem, the beautiful date palm was cultivated beside the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile rivers. The date was the bread of the people who lived in these fertile valleys, and it is an important article of food in northern Africa, Arabia, and Persia to-day. Look at a map of northern Africa, and you will see that the great Sahara covers a large part of it. Here and there across the drifting sands wind caravan routes, traveled by camels ridden by strangely dressed men. These routes lead to beautiful garden spots called _oases_. Here are wells and springs, with little streams flowing in the shade of fig, date palm, and other trees. The people who dwell within these groves beside the cooling waters look out upon the desert as the inhabitants of an island might look upon the boundless sea. Find some of these oases and learn why they are fertile. The people who live in these oases depend upon dates for their living. The dreary journey from the coast to the interior is made to procure quantities of this fruit, which are wanted by the outside world. If you were to make a journey in a desert country, you would find that you could not carry such articles of food as you would have if you remained at home. The sunshine beats down fiercely, the springs and wells are far apart, and the patient animals must not be overloaded. The chief article of food carried is the date. A mass is packed together until it is so hard that pieces are chopped off with a hatchet when they are wanted. Like the cocoanut palm, the date palm rises to a great height, sometimes fifty or sixty feet, without branches. It ends in a crown of beautiful feathery leaves which droop downward. These leaves may be ten or fifteen feet long. Many of them stand edgewise. Unlike most trees, the trunk does not steadily increase in size, and you can tell nothing as to the age of the tree by its diameter. [Illustration: FIG. 54.--Date Palms loaded with Ripe Fruit, Biskra, Algeria. (Year Book U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1900.)] In its wild state many shoots spring from the base of the tree. These may grow as high as the parent stalk, so that in time a jungle or thicket is formed.