JANUARY 1, 1914 



39 



High-pressure Gardening 



DASHEEN — MORE ABOUT THOSE IN THE PIO- 

 TUKE, P. 784, NOV. 1. 



When neighbor Ault was digging that big 

 hill of 2OV4 lbs., I picked up one of the 

 long leaf-stalks he cut off, and took it home 

 to see if that would make a soup or stew as 

 good as the little shoots. I took it, leaf and 

 all, and Mrs. Root used the whole thing for 

 soup, and it made about the best dish of 

 dasheen we have had. Of course we peeled 

 off the outside covering near the ground. 

 Just think of it, friends ! Supjoose you could 

 take a tall stalk of corn that had given a 

 big crop already, and make two or more 

 good meals of one " cornstalk! " 



I have mentioned the fact that he used 

 lime as well as stable manure. Well, he has 

 just given me an additional fact in regard 

 to his astonishing yield. When he came on 

 the place he found a heap of little shells 

 his predecessor gathered for some reason or 

 other. Having no use for them he used 

 them for stable bedding. After the horse 

 bad tramped them up tine he shoveled the 

 manure and all around the dasheen. I wish 

 our experiment station would tell us if these 

 mashed shells might have had any thing to 

 do with this enormous growth of the dash- 

 een. 



DASHEEN DATA DASHEEN IN OHIO, ETC. 



Dasheen purchased from the Brooksville Develop- 

 ment Co., May 1, 1913, arrived and were planted 

 May 10 on different kinds of ground. All grew and 

 were up June 1. Dasheens planted on clay soils 

 failed because of lack of moisture. One hundred and 

 fifty tubers planted on sandy black loam did exceed- 

 ingly well. Dug first mature tubers from them Sept. 

 1, 1913. They were entirely matured Sept. 15, dug 

 on that date, the yield being six pecks. 



None of these received irrigation ; those receiving 

 irrigation were frozen Sept. 22, 23, unmatured. 



The average height of plants was forty inches ; 

 number of leaves about twelve. Dasheen planted 

 here on suitable ground, and given ordinary cultiva- 

 tion, will mature. 



Cedarville, Ohio. Harry Powers. 



The above, with sample tubers, was sub- 

 mitted to the Department of Agi'iculture, 

 and below is their reply : 



Mr. Uarry Powers: — Your letter of October 14 

 and the package of dasheens was received several 

 days ago, and we desire to thank you heartily for the 

 same. I have tested a few of the tubers on my table, 

 and find them of very good quality. The quantity of 

 tubers which you secured would hardly warrant your 

 continuing the culture of the dasheen in Ohio, from 

 the commercial standpoint especially, as the corms 

 and tubers are very small; but if by irrigating and 

 fertilization in the first half or two-thirds of the sea- 

 son you could stimulate the growth of the plants, you 

 might obtain a considerably more satisfactory yield. 

 It would be, of course, necessary to withhold water 

 toward the close of the season, in order to allow the 

 tubers to ripen. I may add that stable manure is 

 probably the best form of fertilizer used. 



I have to thank you again for sending us your 



report, and to congratulate you on the degree of 

 success which you have attained. A smaller number 

 of plants started indoors a month or more earlier, 

 and then set out, would no doubt give a yield as 

 large or larger. R. A. Young, 



Washington, D. C, Nov. 5. Scientific Assistant. 



Permit me to suggest that the irrigated 

 tubers that did not mature would have made 

 an excellent stew, as I have several times 

 described, and we prefer this stew of im- 

 mature tops and tubers to any other way of 

 cooking the dasheen. In regard to yield, 

 on our Medina stiff clay soil we had about 

 three bushels of tubers from 50 plants, some 

 of them very small indeed. Now hold your 

 breath and listen : I have just been over to 

 neighbor Ault's, and saw the corm and tu- 

 bers from one of his best hills (see picture 

 on p. 784, Nov. 1). After being dug .and 

 washed there were 20^/4 lbs., the product of 

 one small shrunken tuber, in just about 

 8 months from planting. Besides a good 

 dressing of stable manure, Mr. Ault saj's 

 he sowed about a peck of lime and worked 

 it in on his patch of little more than a rod 

 square. It may transpire that, like the 

 clovers, lime is the thing. One more valu- 

 able thing about the dasheen: Unlike the 

 Irish potato, light, and even strong sun- 

 shine, improves the tubers instead of doing 

 injury. 



We clip the following from the Manatee 

 River Journal : 



That the dasheen is a coming food product of 

 Florida is borne out by reports made by parties who 

 have been experimenting in growing it. Mr. A. I. 

 Root, of Medina, Ohio, who spends his winters in 

 Bradentown, and has just recently returned, dropped 

 in a few days ago and showed us a letter from Mr. 

 Young, of the Department of Agriculture, and called 

 attention to articles from Bradentown upon the dash- 

 een in his paper Gleanings in Bee Culture. The 

 following is the letter : 



Mr. A. I. Root: — I have recently returned from a 

 trip to Hawaii, California, and the Southern States, 

 to study the taro and the dasheen. I find your let- 

 ters of July 21 and July 22, with proof-sheets of 

 your articles on the dasheen. I wish to thank you 

 for these and the continued interest you are taking 

 in the introduction of this vegetable, which we be- 

 lieve will eventually prove of much value, especially 

 in the Southern States. * * * j ^ag ju Braden- 

 town early in October, and was greatly pleased with 

 the dasheens grown by your neighbors, Mr. Harrison 

 and Mr. Ault. They were the best I had seen up to 

 that time, outside of our own planting at Brooksville, 

 though the next day I saw a three-acre commercial 

 field a few miles from Tampa that had made a re- 

 markable growth. This was in muck soil that had 

 been previously used for trucking. 



R. A. Young, Scientific Assistant. 



Washington, D. C, Nov. 7. 



In the November issue of Gleanings a letter and 

 a half-tone picture of a mammoth dasheen is a con- 

 tribution from Arthur E. Ault, of Bradentown. The 

 plant pictured was between six and seven feet high, 

 and he says the soil upon which they grow is a well- 

 fertilized humus-filled sand, and that he ridged the 

 soil with furrows six feet apart, planting two row^ 



