GOVERNMENT POLICY OF PLANT INTRODUCTION 43 



Zone, but I will close with a plea for my pet vegetable, which I 

 hope to see some day as common in New England as it is now in 

 Japan. I refer to the Japanese udo, Aralia cordata, which is as 

 easily grown as asparagus, is a decorative hardy perennial, and is 

 as characteristic in its flavor as celery or rhubarb. It would be a 

 strange thing if New Englanders should first make the acquain- 

 tance of this vegetable through the advertising channels of the 

 California asparagus growers, one of whom is planting forty acres 

 at the present time. 



Discussion. 



The question was asked if the Department of Agriculture had 

 introduced anything suitable for cultivation in New England. 



The Lecturer replied that the Department had introduced 

 certain varieties of apples and pears but no new fruits as yet. 

 There are few lands subject to such low temperatures as we have 

 in New England. Only in the northern portions of Russia, Man- 

 churia, and China can be found an area such as is found in this 

 section of the country. Experiments are now being carried on 

 with a species of Chinese jujube but have not yet sufficiently 

 progressed to claim much for it. The jujube will flower in Feb- 

 ruary and even after freezing will produce another set of blossoms. 

 It furnishes a large industry in the Shantung province of China 

 and it is thought that it can be grown in New England. It also 

 resists drought to a remarkable degree. 



The line we are working on principally is the development of 

 stocks suitable for New England. We have overlooked in a meas- 

 ure the character of the stocks upon which our fruits are grown. 

 The question of cherry stock has received some attention. The 

 Mahaleb and Mazzard stocks are now used extensively but they 

 blight badly and are subject to a variety of leaf diseases. Nur- 

 serymen have not investigated sufficiently the Japanese cherries 

 What we know of this stock is that it is less liable to disease and the 

 Japanese use it for grafting purposes. It certainly should be tried. 



Experiments are also in progress with the Chinese peach as a 

 stock for peach culture but we are not yet far enough along in our 

 investigations of this particular problem to be of much interest here. 



