The banana has recently found a new use in Venezuela. It has the
property of keeping the soil moist round it, in a country where
sometimes no rain falls for months; so it has been employed to give
freshness, as well as shade, to the coffee plant, whose cultivation
has been greatly extended (Venezuela produced 38,000,000 kilogrammes
of coffee in 1876). The Venezuelans can consume but little of the
banana fruit thus furnished, so that attention is being given to
increasing its value as an export. At the Paris Exhibition were
samples of banana flour (got by drying and pulverizing the fruit
before maturity) and brandy (from the ripe fruit) The flour has been
analyzed by MM. Marcano and Muntz. It contains 66.1 per cent of
starch, and only 2.9 of azotized matter.
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