226 GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



and many persons of weak constitution cannot cat them 

 without positive injury. They possess scarcely any nutri- 

 tive properties, but their cooling nature renders them to 

 most palates very agreeable, and persons in good health 

 do not find them injurious. They are eaten raw, fried, 

 stewed, and pickled. 



CHINESE YAM, (Dioscorea Batatas.) 



. A perennial plant brought from China to France in 1850 

 or 1851 by M. de Montigny, the French Consul at Shang- 

 hai. It has annual stalks or vines, and perennial tuberous 

 roots. The leaves are heart-shaped, triangular, pointed 

 above, and seven or eight nerved. The length and 

 breadth of the leaf are about equal ; it has a smooth and 

 glossy surface, and is of a deep green color. Its footstalks 

 are half the length of the leaf, furrowed, and of a violet 

 color. Its flowers are dioecious, and of a pale yellow 

 color. The twining stems turn from left to right, and 

 grow, if staked, at least ten or twelve feet high, and de- 

 velope from the axils of the leaves small tubers, the size 

 of a large pea or kidney bean, which drop from the stem 

 at maturity. 



Culture. The small, axillary tubers afford the readiest 

 mode of propagating the plant, though the largest product 

 seems to have been obtained where the root tubers were 

 cut in sections and inch or an inch and a half long. These 

 should be planted in rich ground deeply trenched, the 

 deeper the better, and then laid off in low ridges or beds 

 eighteen or twenty inches from centre to centre. On the 

 top of this ridge a furrow, three inches deep, is made with 

 the hoe, in which the sets are planted. This should be 

 done early in the spring, and where the seasons are short, 



