1892.] ESSAYS. 97 



to produce varieties of value. In connection with asparagus 

 should be mentioned also the Japanese Udo (Aralia cordata), 

 the spring shoots of which are used as we use those of that 

 plant. This is also everywhere common in the rich woods of 

 Yesso ; it is also cultivated to some extent and is said to be 

 really delicious. 



The cultivation of both the American and the old Ja})anese 

 varieties of the peach has been attempted in Yesso ; but, as 

 already indicated, with very poor success on account of the 

 winter-killing, not of the fruit buds merely, but of the tree 

 itself. The Japanese are not familiar with budding and, in 

 Yesso at least, propagate wholly from stones. The old native 

 sorts produce a \Qry inferior fruit. 



A kind of apricot is somewhat cultivated in Yesso. The 

 tree seems to be perfectly hardy and enormously productive ; 

 but the fruit is small and inferior. There, at least, it is propa- 

 gated wholly from the stones, and so far as I am aware there is 

 but one variety. 



With brief mention of one other Yesso fruit, I will leave 

 this branch of my subject and pass on to consider some of the 

 flowers of Yesso. This is the peculiar fruit of a species of 

 conifer ( Cepkcdotaxiis driqmcea) which grows as an undershrub 

 in many of the mountain forests. This shrub is sometimes as 

 much as eight or nine feet in height but usually rather less ; 

 and the female plants bear a stone fruit precisely like a plum 

 in structure. It is of about the size of the common pecan nut ; 

 the flesh is proportionally about as thick as that of the plum 

 and is very juicy and remarkably sweet, with a faint suggestion 

 of the pine in its flavor. Really at present of no practical 

 importance, it has actually seemed to me, as I have often 

 jokingly said, that this fruit aflbrds a rare field for the quack- 

 medicine man. A rich natural syrup, with the flavor of the 

 pine — what a chance for the production of a specific for throat 

 troubles, coughs, and consumption ! And then it comes from 

 Japan — that magic land whence come — of all things — soap, 

 which the Japanese never use, and sovereign remedies for 

 corns, with which their shoeless feet are never troubled. 



