242 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 1916 



Let Us Send You a Free 

 Copy of 



"Coniferous Evergreens 

 and Evergreen Shrubs" 



By H. E. HOLDEN 



Suggestions for Planting and Treatment 



This readable and instructive 

 article originally appeared in 

 the "American City Magazine" 

 and created so much favorable 

 comment that it has been re- 

 printed in pamphlet form for 

 wide distribution. 



A copy will be mailed you upon 

 request if you mention " The 

 Garden Magazine.'" 



THE AMERICAN NURSERY CO. 



Singer Building NEW YORK 



{Nurseries at Springfield, N. J., and Flushing, N. Y.) 



Healthy 



Trees 



Perfect Apples 



when you spray with 



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On January iy b 



WE WILL PUBLISH 



"Life and 

 Gabriella" 



By Ellen Glasgow 



Author of "The Battle- Ground, " 



"Virginia, '* etc. 

 The story of a woman's courage 



AND 



"Within the 

 Tides" 



°y Joseph Conrad 



Author of '" Youth," " Chance," 



'* Victory," etc. 



A collection of four tales 



of the seaboard 



Doubleday. Page 



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Garden City 



N.Y. 



Udo, A Vegetable Novelty 



FOR persons who like novelty in their food and 

 in their gardens, an interesting field for experi- 

 ment is offered by the Japanese vegetable, udo. 

 Nurserymen have grown the udo under the name of 

 Aralia cordata for ornamental purposes, for twenty 

 years or more, but as a vegetable it is still compar- 

 atively unknown. On rich soil it grows to a height 

 of 10 feet or more, producing a very ornamental 

 mass of large green leaves and, in the late summer, 

 long loose flower clusters, sometimes 3 feet in length. 



The plant requires little care and with the same 

 space devoted to it, yields approximately the same 

 amount of food for the table as asparagus and is 

 ready for use at about the same time in the spring. 

 After the first frost it dies down each autumn to 

 come up again in the spring, much as asparagus and 

 rhubarb do. A patch of it can be forced each spring 

 for at least six years and probably much longer. 

 The flowers attract bees 

 and flies in such numbers 

 that a field of it is usually 

 humming with insects. As 

 a honey plant, therefore, 

 the udo deserves the at- 

 tention of beekeepers. In 

 this country the udo has 

 done best in moist re- 

 gions, in particular in New 

 England, the Atlantic 

 States as far south as the 

 Carolinas, in the rainy 

 region of Puget Sound, 

 and in the trucking sec- 

 tions of California. 



Where greenhouses or 

 coldframes are available, 

 the seed should be planted 

 in March or April — one- 

 fourth of an inch deep in 

 soil that consists of equal 

 parts of loam, mold and 

 sand. As soon as the 

 plants are 3 or 4 inches 

 high, they can be planted 

 out in the ground or pot- 

 ted and set out later. 

 Thereafter the udo needs little attention. 



therefore, not too great a distance to 

 allow between plants. 



Perhaps the greatest difficulty 



connected with the cultivation 



of the udo is the blanching 



of the shoots. It is these 



that are regarded as 



the real delicacy, for 



the flavor of the 



a 

 certain rankness 

 which is unpleasant 

 to most palates. Var- 

 ious methods of blanch- 

 ing the early shoots have 

 therefore been experi- 

 mented with. In California 

 excel- 



The udo, comparatively unknown as a vegetable, 

 has been grown for years by nurserymen for orna- 

 mental purposes 



Its roots 



spread with extraordinary rapidity through loose 

 rich soil — udo is not recommended for poor, 

 dry land — and the crowns soon become at least 

 a foot across. Three and a half or four feet is, 



Udo, four years old, blanched under a tile 



light material, such as 

 sand or sifted coal 

 ashes, have been tried 

 with considerable suc- 

 cess. In any case 

 great care must be 

 taken not to permit 

 the shoots'! to break 

 through into the sun- 

 light. If they succeed 

 in this, they at once 

 become green and 

 their flavor rank. 

 Shoots can be cut when 

 only six inches long.but 

 it is better to let them 

 grow to 1 2 or 18 inches. 



When raw, the stems 

 contain a resinous sub- 

 stance which gives 

 them a decided, and 

 to many persons un- 

 pleasant, taste of pine. 

 It is, however, easy to 

 eliminate by soaking 

 thin slices of the stems 

 in ice-cold water for an 

 hour or two, or by 

 boiling them in two or 

 three waters, as is 

 often done with strong- 

 flavored vegetables. 



It is delicious when 

 stewed in a white 

 sauce (such as is used 

 for cauliflower or as- 

 paragus) , or the shoots 

 may be peeled and cut 

 into 3-inch lengths, 

 and used as a salad 

 with French dressing. 

 Or they are equally 

 delicious as a soup. 



Cut the stalks 

 when about 

 twelve or eigh- 

 teen inches long 



lent re- 

 sults have 

 been ob- 

 tained by 

 mounding 

 up the 

 earth in 

 the early spring over each 

 plant, much as is done with 

 asparagus. Elsewhere, how- 

 ever, the late frosts make 

 the soil too cold and the 

 shoots are slow in coming 

 through. 



Another method is to put 

 a large drain tile, with one 

 end closed, over each hill 

 before the spring growth 

 starts. The shoots which 

 come up inside the tile are 

 well blanched but they show 

 a tendency to produce a 

 number of unopened leaf- 

 stalks which take away 

 from the robust growth of 

 the shoots. To obviate this, 

 casks or boxes filled with 



A blanched stalk of udo 



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