Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 551 



to form a support for the buds, which are easily broken. The chayote is 

 a plant which may be characterized as hydroptacal. If a sprout be cut, 

 immediately a large portion of the juice is to be seen running down, 

 which is not the case, however, in dry situations, which proves that 

 this plant requires a humid soil to grow with vigor and extend its 

 sprouts to a large circumference. The chayote is preferable to the 

 rima or bread tree, because the first year it is planted it fructifies, 

 which is not the case with the rima, which, being a tree, does not bear 

 fruit until after a certain period of time corresponding to that which 

 nature has assigned to fructify. The " rima " produces fruit solely, 

 while the chayote, after having given an abundance of fruit, gives, at 

 the same time, a quantity of roots which make good flour for bread, 

 and a fecula appropriate for making starch. The roots are tuberous; 

 and from the principle ones, which are those which sprout annually, 

 there extend others, formed like potatoes, from one to two feet in 

 length and from three to four inches in diameter. These roots propa- 

 gate in circles of from three to four or even, sometimes, six yards (or 

 eighteen feet) around the central or principal roots. From the 

 extreme ends of these roots sprout a filament nearly the twentieth 

 part of an inch in diameter, from the extreme end of which again 

 grow other roots, and so on to the above mentioned distance. These 

 secondary roots are those which serve for food, because it would ruin 

 the utility of the plant to touch the principal roots in respect to the 

 propagation for the ensuing year. Is there another plant in creation 

 which produces fruit, and during the same year roots, which man can 

 thus use to advantage? I have known, by experience, that one 

 chayote plant has given eighty fruits and some five fanegas or bushels 

 of roots, and continue producing for the term of seven years. If this 

 plant is admirable as an alimentary production, it is much more so in 

 its mode of propagation, and is, probably, the only instance to be 

 found in the vegetable kingdom where the fruit is planted with the 

 seed. The mode of planting is the following : The fruit is taken in 

 the month of October and placed in a hot-house or suspended on a 

 wall in a room of, at least, sixty degrees. In November the germ 

 commences to sprout, and increases according to the quantity of juice 

 contained in the fruit. In such a situation the stem grows from a 

 half to three-quarters of a yard in length, until the beginning of May, 

 when the fruit, with its branch, is then planted in soft, humid ground, 

 taking care that the sprouts are not injured. This short description 

 which I have given of this w r ondrous production of nature, is merely 

 for the purpose of bringing into notice its utility to the north and 



