BULLETIN OF THE 



No. 84 



Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry, Wm. A. Taylor, Chief. 

 April 16, 1914. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH UDO, THE NEW JAPANESE 

 VEGETABLE. 



By David Fairchild, Agricultural Explorer in Charge of the Office of Foreign 

 Seed and Plant Introduction. 



INTRODUCTION. 



A decade lias passed since the udo of Japan was first proposed 

 as a vegetable to be grown by Americans. This is a short time for 

 the introduction of a new vegetable, when one considers that it 

 means simply that at ten different times experimenters have had a 

 chance to taste its blanched shoots. But it is appropriate now that 

 there be put in print some account of the experiences which various 

 experimenters have had with this new vegetable. 



Enough data are at hand for the production of an extensive bulletin 

 on the udo, but, as much yet remains to be done, the important conclu- 

 sions regarding its culture can be stated in a few paragraphs for the 

 guidance of those who are interested in trying this new vegetable. 



The writer first published, in 1902, a short account of the udo 

 which he wrote in Japan while traveling as Mr. Barbour Lathrop's 

 explorer 1 and before he had had any opportunity to experiment 

 with the plant in America. Necessarily that account lacks any back- 

 ground of personal experience with the difficulties of cultivation. 



Since 1906 the writer has had growing on his own place in Mary- 

 land just such a patch of udo as he is encouraging others to plant. 

 (Figs. 1 and 2.) Each spring he has had the pleasure of experiment- 

 ing with it in his kitchen, as well as of blanching it in the garden, 

 and he can speak now regarding it with a degree of confidence not 

 possessed heretofore. As a commercial proposition he has had only 

 the chance of watching an experiment in California made by a large 

 asparagus grower, on the Sacramento River, who has now for three 

 years been .growing several acres of udo and has shipped crates of it 

 to the eastern market, where, as was to be expected, he has found 

 commission merchants slow to take it up. (Figs. 3 and 4.) 



1 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin 42, 1903, pp. 17-20. 



Note. — Results of experiments in Maryland. Gives methods of cultivation, preparing, 

 and cooking. Adapted to New England, the Atlantic States as far south as the Caro- 

 linas, the rainy region of Puget Sound, and the truck sections of California about 

 Sacramento. 



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