March 1906.J 



239 



Miscellaneous, 



same time brought into culture a more 

 productive rice. It has not done away 

 with the pernicious practice of polishing, 

 but an interest in the unpolished rice has 

 lately been aroused that, it is hoped, 

 will lead to the abandonment of a prac- 

 tice which robs the buyer of nearly all 

 of the flavouring matter of the rice and 

 leaves only the starchy portion. It is a 

 disgrace that the most intelligent nation 

 in the world should be so ignorant of 

 the food value of the crop, on which 

 more people live than on any other, 

 that they should insist upon having 

 their rice made as shiny as polished glass 

 beads, although in so doing they are 

 throwing away the best part of it. No 

 -rice-eating people treat their rice as 

 we do, and it is to be hoped that the 

 small markets that have been started 

 for the unpolished rice in this city and 

 elsewhere will lead to a general propa- 

 ganda in its favour. 



THE CORSICAN CITRON INDUSTRY. 

 The Corsican citron is better known to 

 housewives than to the general public, 

 though a failure to put thin shavings of 

 candied citron rind into the poundcake 

 would be quickly noticed by the house- 

 hold. 



Though no one person eats in a year 

 any large amount of citron, yet every 

 one eats a little, and the aggregate 

 amounts to over 2,000,000 pounds a year, 

 almost all of which is imported from 

 Italy and Corsica. To assist a progres- 

 sive Californian who thought he had the 

 right kind of laud and a climate in which 

 to grow the Corsican citron, the writer 

 was sent to the birthplace of Napoleon 

 by the promologist of the department in 

 1894. It w as the first time I had ever tried 

 to get from a foreign people the plants 

 with which to start an industry that 

 would eventually remove one of its best 

 buyers from the field, and might some 

 time lead to the apperance of a rival 

 industry. I was nervous and had been 

 advised that the Corsicans were not 

 inclined to let scions of their fine citron 

 trees go out of the country ; so on land- 

 ing at Bastia, the port nearest Italy, I 

 pushed through to the centre of the 

 lslaud ; and there, in a small mountain 

 town perched on one of the characteris- 

 tic pinnacles of land, surrounded by 

 groves of citrons, I made my mission 

 known to the Mayor. 



While awaiting for him to bury one 

 of his friends in a neighbouring village, 

 I strolled about the place and sought by 

 means of my camera to dispel the suspi- 

 cions of the crowd that gathered uncom- 

 fortably about me. While I stood with 

 my head under the black focussing cloth, 

 with a young mother and a child posing 



against the stucco wall before me, I was 

 startled by the touch— not too gentle, 

 either — of the guarde civile of the village. 

 " Vox papier s, silvous plait," was the 

 curt demand. I replied in Italian that 

 I had left them at Bastia, at which 

 response, and to the evident delight of 

 the crowd, I was marched off to jail. On 

 an errand that was not likely to be 

 pleasing if explained to the guard, with 

 no papers in my pocket, with a captor 

 whose very look was enough to terrify 

 any one, and in a jail that would rival 

 in filthiness any that the Inquisition 

 ever had, I think there are few men who 

 would not have paled. Seated in the jail, 

 with the guard and his wicked-looking 

 wife glaring at me, I was asked to give 

 an account of the reason of my visit. 

 This I refused to do, but endeavoured to 

 find out why an American was arrested 

 for taking pictures of the beauties of 

 this lovely village. To my surprise, I 

 found that I was taken for an Italian 

 spy, and the examination of all my 

 belongings only served to increase the 

 suspicion, for it revealed Italian notes 

 on abstruse botanical subjects. For 

 hours I fought in poor Italian for a 

 release, but not until I found, in a pocket 

 that had been overlooked, a Treasury 

 cheque for some small amount, and in- 

 sisted that this was my paper of citizen- 

 ship, did the guard reluctantly let me 

 go, and I left the town as quickly as I 

 could, cutting from some citron trees as 

 I went, however, enough scions or bud 

 sticks to graft a small orchard. 



It was my pleasure, ten years after 

 this, to visit in Southern California the 

 orchard that was the result of the intro- 

 duction of these scions. The industry 

 is on a paying basis to-day, and Dr. 

 Westlake, of Duarte, has his own factory 

 in which he candies a grade of citron 

 that he claims is more digestible than 

 any now sold on our markets. 



UDO, A NEW JAPANESE SALAD PLANT. 



While there is nothing that has been 

 found yet that will compare with let- 

 tuce as a salad plant, the Japanese 

 have a vegetable that will give a 

 welcome variety. In Japan it is as 

 common as celery is with us, and 

 is so popular that it is canned and 

 sent to this country for the use of 

 the thousands of Japuiese who live 

 here. It is used cooked with Soy 

 sauce and in many other ways, yet it 

 might never have been introduced into 

 America but for the fact that a youug 

 American girl, Miss Fanny Eldredge, 

 adopted the thick, blanched shoots, two 

 feet long or more, as a salad. By shav- 

 ing them into long, thin shavings, and 

 serving with a French dressingi she pro- 



