294 



The Journal of Heredity 



centuries this vegetable has been grown, 

 and there is no reason why it should 

 not be the case in this country. It is 

 only by the sliifting of crops and the ad- 

 dition of new ones to our list that this 

 country is to be completely farmed to 

 that degree of perfection which will be 

 necessary if we are ever to support the 

 vast population which we expect to 

 support. 



Is the Chinese petsai worthy of this 

 effort to establish it in our horticulture? 

 Many testimonials of people who have 

 eaten it and who are unprejudiced can 

 be adduced to show that it is. 



TESTIMONIALS 



While it is undoubtedly true that it 

 requires years to test a new vegetable 

 and be sure that it will stand the test 

 of continuous use, there are certain 

 facts which make it seem probable that 

 the introduction of the petsai can be 

 accomplished in a reasonable length of 

 time in this country. 



The American is learning to eat many 

 new things He is in this resjject in a 

 stage advanced over that of the mod- 

 ern European. His menu is a hodge- 

 podge already of the menus of Italy, 

 France and England, with those of 

 Russia, Greece, and Hungary thrown 

 in. Ours is the melting pot of menus, 

 so to speak, and into it have come in 

 the last twenty years the grapefruit, the 

 avocado, the ripe olive, the casaba 

 melon, the honey-dew melon, the wild 

 rice, the dasheen, the sand dab, the tile 

 fish, the green asparagus, the endive or 

 whitlof, the globe artichoke, the soy 

 bean, the Japanese persimmon, the 

 mango, and others. 



'J'he Chinese restaurant has become 

 a factor in our cities and thousands of 

 Americans have come to appreciate the 

 new flavors and textures of foods which 

 are served there. This petsai is one 

 of the staple vegetables of the chop suey, 

 and without knowing it many thousands 

 of Americans have tasted and liked it 

 and will continue to do so in increas- 

 ing numbers as the years pass. 



A vegetable which comes to us while 

 we are in this formative state of mind 



regarding foods is not likely to be 

 thrown out again if, like petsai, it has 

 the great advantage of cheapness and 

 has stood the test of centuries on the 

 other side of the I'acific. We must not 

 forget that nearly all of our plant foods 

 have come to us one by one from for- 

 eign peoples and generally represent the 

 discoveries of primitive peoples some- 

 where in the world. There seems to be 

 a biological drift toward the enlarge- 

 ment of the menu of civilized man, and 

 this drift is taken advantage of by the 

 manufacturers of new foods who con- 

 trol their production. 



Why should it be considered the 

 wisest thing for the people in these 

 matters of foods to be left to the 

 influences of private salesmanship? 

 Our food chemists know the approxi- 

 mate food value of most of the foods 

 sold on our markets, but the people do 

 not. And because they are ignorant the 

 manufacturers of foods sj)end millions 

 to teach them tlie value of their particu- 

 lar product. They make house to house 

 visits by the thousand to demonstrate 

 the use of some special food for which 

 they charge often more than it is actu- 

 ally worth. The people have no way 

 of finding out what it is really worth 

 and they learn to like it and find it hard 

 to do without. This habit, fixed by 

 the skillful salesman, becomes the source 

 of revenue to the manufacturer, re- 

 gardless of whether a thousand calories 

 of it cost the consumer three cents or 

 ten cents. 



On the other hand we have here in 

 the Chinese petsai a product which is 

 actually cheaper to produce, has pre- 

 sumal)ly the same food value as lettuce, 

 and because no food manufacturer can 

 control its production with some trade- 

 mark or patent, and because there is no 

 advertising agency which can take it 

 up and make a house to house canvass 

 and teach people to eat it, years or even 

 decades pass before, through the slow 

 and tedious process of gradual popu- 

 larization, it finally comes into our menu 

 and stays there. 



SupiK>sing we take a con.scious direc- 



