Fairchild: Testing New Foods 



21 



to oblivion without considering the fact 

 that one has tasted only a rank, worth- 

 less seedling. I have tasted North 

 American pawpaws {Asiinina triloba) 

 which are as deliciously flavored as the 

 finest cultivated annona of Maderia, but 

 most people have tried only the rank- 

 flavored, worthless seedlings. As a re- 

 sult, our largest, finest native wild fruit 

 has remained for four centuries practi- 

 cally untouched by the horticulturists of 

 America. The watery, tasteless seed- 

 ling avocados (foolishy called alliga- 

 tor pears) which a few years ago came 

 into the markets of New York and 

 Philadelphia from Columbia are not to 

 be compared with the selected grafted 

 varieties of Florida and California, and 

 their sale is doubtless responsible for 

 many people's dislike for or indiffer- 

 ence to the most remarkable of all salad 

 fruits. Many seedling mangos are so 

 strong in turpentine that only one who 

 has formed the habit of eating the 

 mango really enjoys them. I once had 

 the experience of changing completely 

 the opinion of an American millionaire 

 who had traveled hurriedly through 

 India, the land of the mango, and who 

 had formed a very unfavorable impres- 

 sion of that wonderful fruit, by tast- 

 ing some poor turpentine variety, by 

 giving him a delicious mango variety 

 from grafted trees in Florida. 



So it is necessary to bring in and 

 grow all varieties possible in order to 

 select the best for the American palate. 

 But it is not enough to grow a single 

 plant of a kind in botanic garden fash- 

 ion. Practical experience has shown 

 us that a test of a variety requires the 

 production of many bushels of the fruit 

 or vegetable. My friend, Mr. Lathrop, 

 took me down the coast of East Africa 

 purposely to get a special mango which 

 he had eaten and liked. When it first 

 fruited years later in Florida, it proved 

 so disappointing in size and flavor as to 

 arouse a good deal of ridicule. By ac- 

 cident, however, a number of trees were 

 permitted to live and bore large crops of 

 fruit, and they came to be appreciated 

 highly by those who could get them. 

 For years we tried to decide whether 

 the various dasheens were really good 



vegetables by growing a few hills of 

 each kind ; but we discovered that by 

 the time we had tried the tubers of the 

 dasheen in various ways on even a very 

 small group of people to get their 

 opinion, the supply was gone and the 

 season was over. We have been forced 

 to grow acres of it, and repeat the cul- 

 ture year after year, in order to weed 

 out the undesirables and make sure we 

 are keeping only the best from every 

 point of view. 



When I tasted for the first time a 

 Chinese jujube, on a French steamer 

 off the coast of China, I liked it in:- 

 mensely and made up my mind that the 

 Department of Agriculture should get 

 it, but when I mentioned the jujube to 

 some of my colleagues of the depart- 

 ment, I was taken to a worthless seed- 

 ling growing in the department grounds 

 and told that it had been tried but 

 wasn't fit to eat. Only since we have 

 planted an orchard of twenty odd dis- 

 tinct varieties of Chinese jujubes, and 

 gathered hundreds of pounds of their 

 fruit and candied them, have we been 

 able to make an impression upon our 

 audience and prove to many that the 

 jujube rivals the date in delicacy of 

 flavor. 



The Paitsai, a Chinese species of 

 mustard, has been grown in the gardens 

 of the country for many years without 

 much progress, but the production of 

 20,000 boxes of it recently and the rapid 

 rise in popularity of the Cinese restau- 

 rants, where it is so largely used, are 

 giving it a test of the proper propor- 

 tions. 



THE MANGO 



But large quantities are necessary,, 

 not only to determine the best varieties, 

 but also to enable one to find out 

 whether many people will like a new 

 thing or not. In the early days, when 

 a single mango (the first of its kind 

 to be produced) was sent in from one 

 of our test gardens, I remember with 

 what pride I took it to our then Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture, and presented it to 

 him. Neither shall I ever forget the 

 disappointment when I learned that 

 one smell of it was enough, that he gave 



