TUNG-CHOW. 
125 
manure, called by them Ta Few* * * § , composed chiefly of human 
ordure. _ . 
This plant, which 1 have eaten as a salad, and found equal to any 
lettuce, has somewhat the flavour, when boiled, of asparagus. It 
often weighs from fifteen to twenty pounds, and reaches the height 
of two or three feet. The Chinese preserve it during the winter 
by different methods : many pickle it in salt and vinegar ; others keep 
it fresh, either by planting it in large quantities in wet sand, at the 
bottom of trenches cut for the purpose, or after drying it in the 
sun, by burying it deep in the earth. Those who wish to preserve 
it for a short time only, place it two or three feet beneath the sur- 
face, covering it with a layer of straw and earth, f 
Of the many species of fruit brought to the Ambassador’s table 
at Tung-Chow, I saw very few growing. Indeed, I can only mention 
a very fine white grape, generally cultivated in the gardens, water 
and other melons, the Lien-wha, and peach. We were, however* 
amply supplied with apples and chesnuts, an esculent seed of a 
pine said to come from Tartary, and the seed of the Taxus nucifera. 
Among the plants raised for other purposes than those yet named, 
the Sida tilicefolia the Xing ma § of the Chinese, was the most con- 
spicuous. This plant is extensively cultivated on the banks of the 
Pei-ho, in the neighbourhood of Tung-chow, for the manufacture of 
cordage formed of its fibre. It is not indeed the universal cordage- 
* Of this manure and its application I shall elsewhere give some account. 
f A full account of the manner of rearing and preserving this vegetable is given in 
Memoires concernant les Chinois, tom. iv. 
% Willdenow has described the Sida tilicefolia under the division of the genus “ pedunculis 
unifloris ,” a character not at first sight belonging to it, since the peduncles often divide 
into several others, each bearing a flower; but each subdivision has a small leaf, which, 
in a more advanced age of the plant, renders the character strictly applicable. 
§ Xing ma. The character ma signifies any plant whose seed is esculent, and whose 
fibre can be made into rope. 
* It 3 
