THE CHINESE YAM. 
181 
garden, and used it for nearly thirteen years, having it 
on the table every day in the season, and it still continues 
as great a favorite as ever, 
I have now the pleasure of laying on the table, for the 
inspection of the members of the Council, specimens of the 
tubers in three stages. The first, or smallest specimens, 
from the size of No. 5 shot, up to the size of a small grape, 
are the serial tubers. These, if planted, will in the first 
year, produce others from four inches to a foot in length, 
like the second sample. If these are planted, they will 
produce large-sized tubers, as in the third sample, weighing 
from one pound to three pounds each. The large speci- 
men is the produce of the third year, from a tuber of about 
three pounds weight, planted whole. The second year the 
tuber produced weighed about six pounds ; the third year 
it was four feet long, fourteen inches in circumference at 
the thickest part, and weighed eleven pounds. The root 
now laid before you is, unfortunately, forked and divided 
into three branches and a fourth small one. The whole 
weighs about fourteen pounds, and the length is three feet 
eight inches; the circumference of each branch is from 
eight to nine inches, and of the whole three lying close 
together sixteen and three-quarter inches. If it had 
formed a single root, instead of being forked, it would 
have been a very fine specimen, and it is probably of about 
the maximum size that the climate will produce, having 
only increased three pounds over the weight of the set 
planted. This plant has been grown on a mound of pre- 
pared soil about three feet high. 
I beg to place these seed bulbs and tubers at the 
disposal of the council for distribution, should they con- 
sider it desirable to disseminate this very useful vegetable, 
with a view to promote its more extended culture in 
Victoria. 
