A correspondent of the Dollar Paper last summer cried " humbug" even before 

 he saw tlic plant grow, because his tubers roiled on the way, and he had to pay 

 express charges for rotten tnhers — so, of course, it is u '" liunibug. " 



A lady, in the Homestead, gives the following receipt for making it : "Take," 

 she says, " a small Irish -potato, wet and weedy ; add to it a turnip tolerably 

 stringy, and not too rank ; splice them together lengthwise, with a morning-glory 

 vine on top ; cultivate strenuously for two years, pulling it in agricultural papers ; 

 then dig up one root (large croj) !) six inches long and three round 1 (immense 

 size 1) ; boil, and eat — if you can." 



In the Farm Journal for November — again copied from Homestead — a wag 

 (probably the Editor!) says: "Some twenty years since, France — that land of 

 beautiful things and Mississipi)i bubbles — brought out the Rohan Potato, and, 

 from a coarse, rank, yellow-fleshed vegetable, made a dish the gods might have 

 envied. After a long gestation, and with exemplary patience, projjhetic of the 

 coming prodigy, this mother of rare things is again parturient, and the world 

 looks on with admiration and astonishment while the olTsjjring is baptized Dios- 

 corea batatas ; a bubble more injuriously framed and carefully nurtured than the 

 Rohan, but just as truly filled with wind." He continues on in this strain, but it 

 is useless to copy. Then, the Rev. M. S. Culberson, who was ten years in China, 

 says: " It is never eaten, except by some of the very poorer classes, &c., as an 

 accompaniment to rats and young puppies, &c. &c." 



Now, Mr. Editor, can you tell me what is the meaning of all this twaddle ? 

 Have these persons cultivated and eaten of it from their own raising ? or, is it 

 because they haven't got a stock of it for sale ? I am strongly of the opinion 

 that, had these very writers — these wiseacres I — the article on sale, they would 

 laud it to the skies as a dish the gods might envy ! But, as I intended to give my 

 own opinion of its merits, " without fear or favor," I will briefly say that I pro- 

 cured a single root, or sprout, in May, 1855, and, for fear of accident, kept it in 

 a small pot the first year, where it made no progress. Last spring, it was barely 

 a slender root, less than the size of a finger. I planted it out, in May last, here, 

 and, although the season was very dry till the last of August, it commenced grow- 

 ing vigorously ; run up a pole some six feet, and then spread out, producing some 

 four or five dozen of small tubers at the axillas of the leaves. The root I took 

 up in the fall; it was over twenty inches in length, and some three inches in 

 diameter at the lower end. In digging it up, I broke off about three inches of 

 the thickest part ; this I had cooked. In flavor, it is not like an Irish or sweet 

 potato, but, in my estimation, superior to either ; pure white, no stringiness or 

 toughness about it — more like pure starch than anything I can compare it to. I 

 should suppose, so long as " the very lowest classes" in China have an abundance 

 of this root, starvation ivill not " stare them in the face," though they may use 

 this root as an accompaniment to the other " fixings," according to the Rev. gent. 

 above quoted. I should prefer the Dioscorea toithout the other addenda, but you 

 know, Mr. Editor, "there is no accounting for tastes." It appears perfectly at 

 home in our climate, if planted in the spring, and, judging from its habits of growing 

 straight down, may be ])lanted very close, and, in this way, will, I think, yield full 

 as large a crop as the Irish potato, and, should it withstand our winter's cold, in 

 the open air, as it is said to do in France, and continue increasing in size for two 

 or three years, its yield must be enormous. All the small tubers I shall plant 

 next season, with every prospect of great success. 



Holcus saccharatum, Sorghum saccharatus, or CJnnese Sugar-Cane. — This is 

 another plant of late introduction from China, and which is now sought after 

 all sections of the Union, wherever its name and fame have been sounded 



