MARCH 15, 1915 



And for as much, O Lord, as yre believe 



That thou wilt pardon us As we forgive, 



Let that love teai-h, wherewith thou dost acquaint us. 



To pardon all Those who trespass against us; 



And though, sometimes, thou find'st we have forgot 



This love for thee, yet lielp And lead us not 



Through soul or body's want to desperation, 



Nor let earth's gain drive us Into temptation. 



Let not the soul of any true believer 



Fail in the time of trial But deliver, 



253 



Yea, save them from the malice of the devil, 



And both in life and death keep 17s from Evil; 



Thus pray we. Lord, for that of thee, from whom 



This may be had For thine is the Kingdom, 



Tills world is of thy work, its wondrous story 



To thee belongs The Poux'r and the Glory, 



And all thy wondrous works have ended never, 



But will remain forever and Forever: 



Thus we poor creatures would confess again. 



And thus would say eternally Amen. 



MiiiMiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiH^^^^ 



HIGH=PEE§§UKE GAEDENING 



THE DASHKEN IN CUBA, ETC., FROM ANOTHER 

 " LONG-TIME FRIEND." 



Friend Root : — I will now explain what I meant 

 when I said that the dasheen craze got me for about 

 $40. In the first place I will state that my folks are 

 great on Irish potatoes, and say they cannot live 

 without them; and as they are sometimes hard to 

 get, and poor at that here, I have tried to replace 

 them with any thing and every thing I ever heard 

 of that would grow here. Every thing has failed 

 so far; so when you got to praising the dasheen 

 ("sky high") I thought they would do. To try 

 them I sent $2 to the Brooksville Development Co., 

 and told them to send me what that money would 

 cover, postage paid by registered mail, as I wanted 

 to try them. In due time I received a letter from 

 them saying that they had sent me a bushel by 

 express for the $2.00. This was the beginning of 

 June. My son was up north at the time, and I was 

 sick, so I could not go to the station myself; so 

 after allowing a reasonable time I sent a man after 

 them. For some reason they were nearly three 

 weeks on the way, and that man had to make seven 

 trips before he finally got them. He charged $2.00 

 a trip. That made. $16; the express charges were 

 about $4.00. This brought them up to $20, when I 

 finally received them. And what did I get? Just 

 18 lbs. of dried-up little tubers the size of marbles. 

 There were about 460 tubers in the 18 lbs., so you 

 can judge for yourself what size they were. 



I could not believe that any experiment station 

 would send out such stuff. I thought that perhaps 

 some one had changed them, so I wrote to the 

 Brooksville Development Co., sending them a sam- 

 ple, and asked them if that was what they had sent, 

 and also asked them to write me as to how many 

 pounds they had delivered to the express company, 

 etc. They merely made no reply at all. 



Well, I threw away the larger part of them, and 

 planted the best about the last of .Tune, not expect- 

 ing they wou. , do any thing; but in November I dug 

 quite a lot of nice tubers about the size of a hen's 

 egg. The next season I planted these ; or, rather, I 

 planted them the last of .January, and in July and 

 August I had a splendid stand of them. They beat 

 the picture you had in Gleanings of your own. 

 Then in September we had a three-weeks' drouth 

 here, and they all died down to the ground. Along 

 in October they sprouted up again, and in November 

 I dug them, and got about 40 bushels. Now comes 

 the " rub." Nothing would eat them. The family 

 said " once a year " was enough if there was nothing 

 else. Neither cat, dog, rats, chickens, nor pigs would 

 eat them, either raw or boiled. I finally disguised 

 them by boiling and mixing them with cornmeal, and 

 fed them to the pigs in that manner, and so got 

 rid of them. 



I want you to understand that I am not blaming 

 you for any failures I may make in following you. 

 Some things have turned out good with me here, and 

 some have failed. Tho.se chufas you wrote about — 



lieavens! how they bore here I and they were good to 

 eat — a fine nut; but I could eat them faster than I 

 could wash off this Cuba soil from them. 



Mulberries have done the best with me. I am 

 getting a fine lot, and the northy berry is the only 

 berry that can hold its own with the grass and weeds 

 in Cuba. 



I wanted 19 try helianti ; but you see what Lovett 

 said about it. If it would grow in bushes and be 

 easy to dig I would still try it. 



Well, old friend, things have not gone very well 

 with me these last few years ever since the cyclone, 

 and I suppose I am somewhat sour. Cuba is going 

 backward. We don't get the honey crops we used 

 to; and this year we are not getting any thing for 

 our honey on account of the war. When we read 

 of the war there, floods here, earthquakes in Italy, 

 drouth in Cuba in summer, heavy rains in winter, 

 all kinds of crops ruined, it looks as if even God 

 were at war with humanity. The way things go, it 

 makes a fellow feel as though he wanted to run 

 away from himself. I am hoping for better times, 

 however. 



Paradero Mangas, Cuba. C. P. Hochstein. 



I believe the above is the first unfavorable 

 report we have had from the dasheen. Let 

 me explain a little. The Development Co. 

 mentioned are in no way connected with the 

 Government Station at Brooksville. The 

 small dasheens ai-e the ones usually sold for 

 seed; and had our good friend H. planted 

 the dried-up ones I think every tuber would 

 have made a plant in time. After filling all 

 orders last May I planted the poorest dried- 

 up ones, and nearly all grew. In regard to 

 their edible qualities, Cuba soil, or the kind 

 of soil used, must be at fault. We are 

 now using them at every meal, and our 

 neighbors agree with us. We boil the skins, 

 or peeling, after scraping out the inside (of 

 the baked dasheen) for the ducks and chick- 

 ens, and they " go for them " more than 

 for any other feed. Plelianti is more trouble 

 to dig and wash than the chufa. Friend H., 

 could not that bright young lady who man-, 

 aged the turkeys so skillfully make them 

 take to dasheens? 



A OREEN-CORN " SCRATCH KR." 



Mr. Root: — I notice that you inquire if any one 

 knows where you can get a corn-scratcher. I do 

 not know about that instrument, but I have for the 

 past 45 years been in the habit of using a sharp 

 peeling-knife, such as Mrs. Root would use for peel- 



