Contenu du sommaire : Les plantes de l'Ancien monde à la conquête de l'Amérique latine.

How the banana Tree Conquered the New World. Among the plants that were introduced early into the New World by Europeans, the banana tree has become so important that one is easily persuaded it is indigenous. Yet this modest bit-player of the first attempts at agricultural diversification in the new continent had to wait a long time before its value was recognized and its commercial possibilities exploited fully, thanks in particular to some of the large food companies, among them the very famous United Fruit Company. Thus the Juanita banana of advertising sketches, thrust into the limelight by its impressario, quickly attained the stature of the "prima donna" of triumphant North American capitalism. The subject of this article is to describe the historic course of this plant, from its Asiatic cradle to the Caribbean zone of its beginnings and to the coastal plains of Central America from where it took off on its conquest of the whole world, until finally it returned to the Philippine Islands, the home of its origin.

The Youth of Latin American Coffee Growing. The coffee shrub, originating probably in the mountains of Ethiopia, and of which Yemen was the first large producer, was only introduced into the New World at the beginning of the 18th century, at the same time into the Carribbean Islands and into the Guiana region. It was then propagated to Venezuela and Brazil ; the latter became the world's leading producer in 1830, a position that it still holds today. During the same period, Costa Rica became the first of the Central American countries to cultivate the plant, and, like Columbia, assumed leadership in the crop towards the beginning of the 20th century. Latin American coffee growing today is remarkable not only for its overall production (60% of the worldwide total), but also for its quality, its mobility, its modernity, and the major role that peasant owned companies -except in Brazil -play.

The Coconut and the Palm-oil Trees in the Americas. Tropical America, especially the immense Amazonian basin and its adjacent lands, is the original home of various palm trees yielding oil-bearing fruit. But the two most important, from the economic point of view, the coconut ant the palm-oil trees, are of foreign origin. Those who believe that these two trees are indigenous to the Americas are at present contradicted by specialists, convinced of the African origin of the former, and the origin in Southeast Asia and insular Pacific for the latter. The coconut tree, after its discovery by Europeans, very quickly adorned the tropical and subtropical coastlines of the Americas, where it was for a long time a " foodstuff " source for its water and the pulp of its fruit. At the end of the 19th century, according to the sites, different uses for coconut groves appeared, or the same uses were continued. While the large plantations of Northeast Brazil and often those of the Carribbean Islands remained above all orchards, the two Mexican coasts specialized in the production of copra, for which the country today is the fourth world producer. Some of the Antillean Islands -Jamaica, Trinidad, and the Dominican Republic -employ the two growth purposes. The American coconut groves are far from being models of growth and of productivity. Ocean storms and illnesses associated with the "large coconut grove " penalize the plantations a lot, and in many of them today the dwarf coconut tree of Malaysia is being introduced. The palm-oil tree came from Africa to Bahia, Brazil, and, hopping from island to island, spread to the North. Its only interest for a long time was only for the natural palm grove ofReconcavo, based on the Benin model. It was only in the 1920s that the United States banana companies, confronted by the terrible Panamanian disease that decimated their plantations, began to plant the first palm tree groves on the edges of the devastated fields, in particular in Honduras and Costa Rica. Beginning in the 1960s, the Andes countries, from Peru to Venezuela, very short of fats and wishing to undertake further colonization, managed with the aid of private and para-governmental companies to set up "palm tree plans ", associating industrial as well as village plantations. Columbia is the best example here. As for Brazil, its participation was limited ; the palm tree grove of Bahia was " improved " and a few other plantations were added. Perimeters were opened near Belem and Fortaleza, but nearby immense oil resources of wild "babassu" in Piaui and Maranhao are available. It can be thought that in view of the social troubles in the Andean coun¬ tries and the competition engendered by the growth of the world-wide economy which makes more and more accessible the oils produced from cotton and soja beans in Brazil and in the United States, and palm oil from Malaysia, that there will be at least a pause in the continued development of palm tree plantations.

The Olive Tree and Its Implantation in the New World : The olive tree is the symbol tree of the Mediterranean world, and its customary region of growth was for millennia near the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The disco¬ very of the New World and the Spanish and Portugese settlements in it opened new horizons to this plant. However, the geographical expansion of it was restricted to a few regions having a Mediterranean-like climate (California , Chile ) or a desert-like one (Argentina , Peru, Mexico). At present, olive growing in the Americas is characterized by small but productive olive groves that are mainly specialized in table olives. The future of the olive tree seems rather promising because of an increasing demand for olive oil and a real interest in this tree that is symbolic of Mediterranean culture.

European Staple Food Plants Introduced in Peru. Ecological surfaces in their natural settings -linked to altitude , latitude and their generally Southern exposures -have enabled Peru to introduce European staple food plants in addition to those (quinoa, corn, manioc, sweet potatoes, cucurbitaceae, string beans, potatoes, numerous fruits) from the intertropical, wet and arid zones. In addition to excellent natural conditions, the pre-Columbian irrigation system worked, and it works extremely well whether in the low valleys or on the flanks and higher terraces of mountains in the heart of agrarian spaces and of varied soil conditions. In the middle of the 1 7th century, the complete range of food plants from Spain was introduced -wheat, barley, leguminous plants (beans, peas, lentils, chick peas, etc.), grape vines... but only a limited number of Mediterranean fruit trees, with the exception of citrus trees that were planted in various periods. Fruit trees from temperate climates were brought in only recently. A corn-rice-wheat trio developed according to the ecological staggered levels and exposure of the farm lands. This agricultural development was begun first in the plains and coastal oases, and did not begin to spread into the Amazonian basin until after World War II.