The Chayote: Its Culture and JJses . 
11 
other change than substituting chayotes for cucumbers, but the usual custom 
is to cook the chayotes for a few minutes before using them. 
Other uses_ for the chayote .—Chayotes boiled, mashed, and seasoned with 
cloves or other spices and lemon juice somewhat resemble apple sauce and are 
palatable. They may also be used with any fruit juice for pie filling. Chayotes 
cut into pieces are often boiled with meats, or they may be boiled and served 
with other vegetables. If boiled and served alone, the addition of a little 
sugar in cooking is sometimes considered an improvement. 
MARKET POSSIBILITIES. 
The chayote is as yet but little known on the markets of the 
United States. As already stated, it has found a place in local mar¬ 
kets in New Orleans and in some of the coast cities of California. A 
few merchants in southern and eastern cities have handled chayotes 
in small quantities as they came to their markets, but the vegetable 
will cease to be a novelty and rise to the position of a staple com¬ 
modity only when its merits become more generally known. 
Some of the larger hotels of the East have served chayotes when 
they could obtain them, but a very small acreage would supply all 
the fruits that could at present be absorbed through this agency. 
It will be seen, therefore, that the market possibilities of the cha¬ 
yote are contingent upon two conditions: frlie vegetable must appear 
in such quantities on markets over a wi<Je field as to make it accessi¬ 
ble to large numbers of people and through well-organized publicity 
campaigns the housewife must be induced to try the chayote on the 
table. Quantity production, of course, must precede quantity con¬ 
sumption, but at present quantity production of the chayote can be 
undertaken by the private grower only at considerable risk of loss. 
The initial expense of planting and equipping with suitable arbors 
even an acre of chayotes is considerable; moreover, the express rates 
to distant markets are heavy, rendering the margin of possible profit 
very narrow. 
But while it would probably be inadvisable for growers to under¬ 
take the production of chayotes in quantity with the expectation of 
finding a ready market with large returns from their sale, the vege¬ 
table is of sufficient merit to warrant a place in every garden where 
it can be grown successfully in the South and Southwest. If the sur¬ 
plus from private gardens* is placed on local markets and there kept 
constantly before the public, in a few years the chayote will become 
widely known as one of the dependable food crops of the region. 
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V 
