EXPERIMENTS WITH UDO. 9 



this, terminal shoots should be taken when they are three-eighths 

 of an inch in diameter and cut 5 inches or more long, care being 

 taken to make the cut just below one of the joints, or nodes, in order 

 to insure that the cuttings form a proper callus. In California, the 

 head gardener of the State University, Mr. Mansell, got 80 per cent 

 of his cuttings so made to grow satisfactorily. He took them in 

 late summer or early fall and put them in clean sand. The writer 

 has rooted cuttings of this kind in garden soil in Maryland. 



While it is possible that cuttings of the root might grow, the 

 writer's experiments with them have been failures, at least unless 

 a bud from the base of the stem was included in the cutting, in 

 which case it grew satisfactorily. 



M 



fc^NHBfe* A^wk, J^*tL> £&*ufe 



- i-ffinB 



1 



»^SG?^nHi^^ -' ^ » ■'■-■i 



-, -f. 



Fig. 8. — General view of one-half acre plantation of udo at the Yarrow Field Station, 

 near Rockville, Md. The plants set from thumb pots in the spring here averaged 

 from 21 to 4 feet high in late summer. 



The udo is a coarse feeder, with great succulent roots which travel 

 rapidly through loose, rich soil. They can consume astonishing 

 amounts of nitrogenous manures and turn them into succulent shoots. 

 Planting udo on poor, dry lands is not recommended, for, though 

 it would probably live, it would make no growth there. A specially 

 constructed bed, such as is often made for asparagus, is, however, not 

 necessary. 



Three and a half feet apart is close enough for plants of the udo to 

 stand, for as they grow older the crowns become at least a foot across. 

 On very rich soil the writer has found 4 feet not too great a distance. 

 When grown even with this space between them the plants will touch 

 each other and make horse cultivation impossible late in the summer. 

 (Fig. 8.) 



