180 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



December, 1913 



The root of the cinnamon vine is hardy but the 

 top dies down each fall. It makes an annual 

 growth sufficient to drape a house porch 



and white as wheat flour, and as insipid 

 as the common white potato, for which 

 it may easily be mistaken. The smallest 

 ripe tubers weigh about two drachms, 

 the largest over two pounds. Whole 

 tubers, when planted, yield the best crops, 

 but transverse slices of two to four inches 

 produce as fine tubers, and even the 

 stems laid into rich earth root easily and 

 furnish good plants. The flowers are in- 

 conspicuous, growing in a spike in the axils 

 of the leaves; after the flowers have faded 

 small tubercles follow them, which are 

 also used to propagate the plant, but it 

 takes two years to develop into a full 

 sized tuber." 



Mr. Prince determined to try the experi- 

 ment of growing the Chinese potato in 

 America possibly to succeed the "Irish" 

 potato, and with that object in view im- 



ported a quart of the small tubercles 

 which succeed the flowers and grow in the 

 axils of the leaves. For this quart he 

 paid six hundred dollars. This quantity 

 was then divided into smaller measures, 

 were put up in little tin boxes two inches 

 high and wide by four inches long, the 

 price for each of which was eighty dollars. 

 These were purchased by the different 

 American nurserymen who were interested. 



As an experiment it had varied success 

 in different parts of New York State and 

 the West, and "it was found that the yield 

 of the batatas is double that of the com- 

 mon potato, all circumstances considered." 

 It did not meet with universal success, 

 however, as it is very difficult to dig, and 

 in the meantime the potato disease had 

 been checked, and we have now almost for- 

 gotten that there ever was a time when it 

 was thought necessary to find a substitute 

 for this most necessary article of food. 



So the Dioscorea Batatas was diverted 

 from its original use and has become one 

 of our popular ornamental vines. It is 

 absolutely hardy, the tubers remaining 

 in the ground all winter. The vine dies 

 down to the ground every fall, but is of 

 very rapid growth, easily attaining a height 

 of from thirty to forty feet in a season. 

 It has very beautiful triangular, heart- 

 shaped leaves which seem immune from 

 disease and untroubled by insects. It is 

 mostly grown for its foliage as the flowers 

 are very inconspicuous, and would be 

 unnoticed but for their great fragrance. 



Some summer day in July and August 

 we go out and are greeted by the sweet 

 odor, which reminds us perhaps of cinna- 

 mon, and there we see that our beautiful 

 vine is in flower. 



During the past summer a certain 

 popular interest has once again been asso- 

 ciated with the plant through a newspaper 

 story in one of the New York dailies repro- 

 ducing an interview with the woman 

 editor of a Western magazine. She 



claimed to have "garbed the state of Mis- 

 souri with cinnamon vines." 



Her first tubers were acquired in pay- 

 ment for an advertisement in 1907. A 

 Pennsylvania Quaker wrote to her. 

 "Friend, we would like to take space in 

 thy publication, and we will do so, if thee 

 will take cinnamon vines in exchange for 

 the ad." Thereupon he proceeded to 

 explain the nature of the cinnamon vines, 

 how fast they grow, how decorative they 

 are, and so forth, and mentioned that the 

 first tuber imported from Japan had cost 

 ten dollars. He offered a barrel of tubers, 

 which meant as many as 10,000 plants. 

 This offer was accepted and the tubers 

 offered as premiums for new subscriptions 

 to the periodical. However they arrived 

 too late to be used for that purpose, not- 

 withstanding the offer, and in consequence 

 were sold to florists and the ten cent stores, 

 with the exception of 1,500 planted on the 

 editor's own farm. 



"That summer, cinnamon vines began 

 to spring up in every part of St. Louis. 

 North and South St. Louis are now covered 

 with them. You will find them rampant 

 throughout the whole state of Missouri, 

 every old shed or fence in the state now has 

 strings of the plants running up the sides, 

 and you will see them extending over the 

 tops of the houses." 



The foliage is really attractive, the flowers small, 

 white, and deliciously fragrant 



