642 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



August, 1917 



who owned it made her living by selling the 

 chayotes that were ready to pick every day 

 from just one single vine. 



Yes, it is true that I have been enthusias- 

 tic about a good many new things in years 

 past that did not amount to very much 

 after all; but several times I have been 

 right about it. I was one of the first to 

 recommend winter lettuce, and the first to 

 introduce the Grand Rapids and to give it 

 its name; and now it is a gi-eat industry 

 (winter lettuce) almost all over the world 

 — especially lettuce under glass; and the 

 same way with celery and the dasheen. 

 During the present great scarcity of food 

 the dasheen, at least in the South, is com- 

 ing to its own. In the course of four or 

 five years I really expect all the northern 

 seed-catalog's will " sit up and take notice," 

 that dasheens can be grown profitably all 

 thru the North.* From the fact that chayote 

 will bear fruit (at least in Florida) in less 

 than 100 days after the seed is planted, I do 

 not see why they cannot begTown here in the 

 North as well as in Florida and in Califor- 

 nia. At present I have not seen any seeds 

 or fruits advertised for planting, in any of 

 the Florida papers; and I do not know 

 whether the Department of Agriculture is 

 now prepared to furnish fruits for planting 

 or not. I think, however, they will send 

 information in regard to the plant on appli- 

 cation. Address Plant Introduction, De- 

 partment of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



Since the above was put in print I find 

 the following in the Year Book of Agricul- 

 ture for 1916 : 



The chayote (Chayote cdulis), a little-known vege- 

 table from tropical America, has been successfully 

 grown in a limited way in California, Louisiana, and 

 Florida, and can possibly be grown successfully in 

 other parts of the country where the temperature 

 does not fall much below freezing. 



Many of those who have eaten the chayote con- 

 sider it superior to our summer squash or vegetable 

 marrow. The plant is a perennial vine that is com- 

 paratively easy to grow. The single-seeded, pear- 

 shaped fruits, light green or creamy white in color, 

 are produced in quantity in the fall and can then 

 be used or stored and used as a fresh vegetable thru- 

 out the winter. 



POTATOES IN SIXTY DAYS. 



I hold in my hand today, July 6, three 

 potatoes the size of good big hens' eggs. 

 They are not an early variety either; but 

 they grew from some late potatoes that T 



* In the Yearbook of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture for the year 1916 a whole chapter of 9 pages 

 is given in regard to the dasheen, with 14 beautiful 

 illustrations. Among the illustrations of different 

 ways of cooking is a picture of the dasheen caserol, 

 stuffed dasheen in the " half shell," dasheen crips, 

 and rolls made from wheat flour in combination with 

 dasheen. With suitable soil and plenty of water it 

 is an easy matter to get dasheens as tall as a man's 

 head, and from a peck to half a bushel of tubers 

 from a single hill, down in Florida. 



found in my son-in-law's cellar when we 

 got back from Florida. The potatoes had 

 thrown out sprouts with some rudimentary 

 leaves. I planted them carefully, and today 

 I find the gTound bulging up around the 

 hills. The main point to ray little story is 

 this: If you want potatoes extra early, get 

 them nicely S])routed in the cellar or in 

 some better place, with leaves and roots 

 also; and if you plant them out as soon as 

 the weather is suitable, you will be ahead 

 two weeks or more. The principal point 

 now is to devise the best method of getting 

 them thus started in some suitable place. 

 Some kind of rich soil will very much 

 facilitate matters; and I am greatly inter- 

 ested now in getting the veiy best soil for 

 starting potatoes in the spring before they 

 can be planted outdoors. The best success 

 I have had so far is with old well-rotted 

 poultry manui'e. Now will somebody who 

 is competent tell us the very best chemical 

 fertilizer to add to this very best "potting 

 soil?" Old well-rotted stable manure, with 

 the proper admixture of sand, is, generally, 

 probably the best thing available. 



THE DASHEEN COMING TO ITS OWN. 



One of our good friends, Mr. D. V. 

 Fisher, of Omaha, Neb., sends us the fol- 

 lowing, but does not tell from what paper 

 it was clipped. By the way, we have 

 dasheens growing nicely in our Ohio gar- 

 den this 27th day of June; and this is the 

 fourth season we have succeeded nicely in 

 growing it here in Ohio. Now here is the 

 clipping. The fellow who wrote it is "some 

 writer." I wish I could give him credit. 



THE POTATO IS DEAD; LONG LIVE DASHEEN! 



Down with the potato. 



Bury it and cover it up. Pan it. Roast it. 

 Bite its eye out. 



Dasheen has come to take its place. Dasheen is 

 not a new kind of sand soap, a patented ice-cream 

 freezer, nor a fresh bit of profanity, nor is it a 

 toilet water. It comes in baskets from "the south." 

 "The south" doesn't get it from anywhere. It "just 

 growed" there. 



You cook it like a potato. Eat it like a potato. 



It is just like a potato; only that some dasheens 

 are bigger than some potatoes, and some dasheens 

 are smaller than some potatoes. A few dasheens 

 likewise are the same size as some potatoes. 



The superiorit.y of the dasheen over the potato 

 lies in the fact that dasheen is a substitute for the 

 potato, whereas a potato is only a potato. 



You boil it with or without the skin, which comes 

 already on the dasheen. 



The dasheen is boneless. 



And it's a mighty fine vegetable, and very timely. 



Dashed if it isn't ! 



" THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY^ OF UNI- 

 VERSITY CITY." 



The following, clipped from the Rural 

 New-Yorker for May 12, explains itself: 



