FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
219 
For the last few years I have been 
growing this useful plant at Brooks- 
ville, Florida, in the United States De¬ 
partment of Agriculture's Foreign 
Plant and Seed Introduction Field Sta¬ 
tion, and had ample opportunity for 
studying its value. The Dasheen con¬ 
tains a higher per cent of protein than 
Irish or sweet potatoes, and can in this 
Southern climate be grown easier, 
yield more, and is a better keeper than 
either of the commodities just men¬ 
tioned. It can be cooked and used the 
same way as the Irish potato, i. e., bak¬ 
ing, boiling and for suffing, and in ad¬ 
dition, almost the whole of the plant 
can be used for culinary purposes, the 
leaves for spinach and the bleached 
shoots for asparagus. 
Where an acre or more is planted, it 
is found advantageous to plant in check 
three by four, or three and a half by 
three. This method does away with a 
considerable portion of hoeing, which 
is an expensive item. The hammocks 
are best adapted to this plant, and seed 
tubers weighing from one and a half to 
two ounces, are planted practically one 
inch below the level, a three inch bull 
tongue run down the rows twice, makes 
a sufficient depression for planting, tub¬ 
ers can be dropped in the row at a dis¬ 
tance of three or three and a half feet, 
and covered by running the bull tongue 
along one side, or the hind teeth of a 
Planet Junior five tooth run along each 
side at one operation. The seed tubers 
should not be cut, but planted whole, 
corrns or large tubers, weighing from 
one to five pounds, can be cut in half 
transversely, but as these corms can be 
used for other purposes, the cutting of 
same is not advised unless short of seed. 
When plants are a few inches high, 
it is advisable to cultivate with five 
tooth cultivator or bull tongue, so erad¬ 
icating obnoxious weeds, which later 
appear unsightly and in the way when 
harvesting. Cultivation should be kept 
up to conserve moisture, at intervals, 
and the last three cultivations a six- 
inch plow should be used, throwing the 
soil gradually to the plant. Care must 
be exercised at this operation in not 
cutting the rootlets, which in dry season 
feed close to the surface. Cutting off 
roots in cultivation will retard the yield 
and growth, and the lower leaves will 
turn yellow. Planting should take place 
about March 1st, the plant will ma¬ 
ture about the end of October, though 
young tubers can be harvested in July 
and August. 
Cultivation should cease at the end 
of August or the beginning of Septem¬ 
ber, when the leaves of the plant sup¬ 
ply sufficient cover to keep down weeds 
and keep in moisture. Maturing of the 
plants can be noticed by the yellowing 
and the dying back of the base leaves, 
and the plant itself will have a yellow¬ 
ish hue with yellow spots on the leaves. 
It is not advisable to plant Dasheen 
on muck or high pine soil. The muck 
soils produce excellent leaf growth, but 
the quality and keeping propensities of 
the tubers are poor. On high pine land 
the soil is usually too dry and lacking 
in humus. 
Harvesting takes place about No¬ 
vember, either before or after frost, a 
light frost will kill the foliage to the 
