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TUNG-CHOW. 
before the tall corn is reaped, and only requires the solar light and 
heat, till then excluded, to ripen. The Polygonum fagopyrum is also 
cultivated as grain, but generally occurred in patches in the neighbour- 
hood of cottages. These three plants seemed to afford the principal 
farinaceous support to the people inhabiting the banks of the Pei-ho. 
The Sesamum oiientale, and the Ricinus communis , or Castor oil plant, 
were much cultivated for the esculent oils extracted from their seeds. 
The Chinese use, I suspect, some means of depriving the oil of this 
plant of its purgative properties ; but that they do not entirely suc- 
ceed, Chinese habits enabled me to observe, in every field or pathway 
that I entered between Tien-sing and Tung-Chow. The seeds, 
which are also eaten, occasion, no doubt, the same effects as the oil 
extracted from them. 
Of the plants cultivated as vegetables, the principal were the > So- 
larium melongena, two species of Capsicum *, the Sweet Potatoe, several 
species of Gourds and Cucumbers, one or two species of Phaseolus , 
or kidney-bean, of which they boil the young plants, and above all, 
the vegetable called by the Chinese Petscii f , a species of cabbage. 
The Petsai is quite a national plant. The quantity consumed 
of it all over the Chinese empire, but in Pekin especially, is im- 
mense ; the nine gates of this city, according to some authors, 
being frequently choked by various vehicles laden with it, which 
pass through them daily from morning till night during the months 
of October and November. This vegetable may in fact be con- 
sidered in relation to the Chinese what the potatoe is to the Irish. It 
is prized by all classes, and esteemed by them as a necessary of 
life. It is cultivated all over the empire, and receives a greater share 
of horticultural labour and skill than any other plant. In rearing 
it, the Chinese consume an enormous quantity of their celebrated 
* The Capsicum Smense, and Capsicum Annuun, the latter quite as commonly as the 
former. 
f Pe, white, tsai, vegetable; so named, probably, because the Chinese blanch the plant, 
naturally green. 
