Before asking specifically in what direction we shall look for new vegetables I must be pardoned for calling attention, in passing, to a very few of the many which are already in limited use in Europe and this country, but which merit a wider employment. Cardon, or cardoon; celeriac, or turnip-rooted celery; fetticus, or corn-salad; martynia; salsify; sea-kale; and numerous small salads, are examples of neglected treasures of the vegetable garden.
The following, which are even less known, may be mentioned as fairly promising:[1]
1. Arracacia esculenta, called arracacha, belonging to the parsley family. It is extensively cultivated in some of the northern states of South America. The stems are swollen near the base and produce tuberous enlargements filled with an excellent starch. Although the plant is of comparatively easy cultivation, efforts to introduce it into Europe have not been successful, but it is said to have found favor in both the Indies, and may prove useful in our Southern States.
2. Ullucus or ollucus, another tuberous-rooted plant from nearly the same region, but belonging to the beet or spinach family. It has produced tubers of good size in England, but they are too waxy in consistence to dispute the place of the better tubers of the potato. The plant is worth investigating for our hot, dry lands.
3. A tuber-bearing relative of our common hedge-nettle, or Stachys, is now cultivated on a large scale at Crosnes, in France, for the Paris market. Its name in Paris is taken from the locality where it is now grown for use. Although its native country is Japan, it is called by some seedsmen Chinese artichoke. At the present stage of cultivation the tubers are small and are rather hard to keep, but it is thought that, "both of these defects can be overcome or evaded."[2] Experiments indicate that we have in this species a valuable addition to our vegetables. We must next look at certain other neglected possibilities.
Dr. Edward Palmer,[3] whose energy as a collector and acute-
- ↑ Commercial Botany of the Nineteenth Century. By John R. Jackson, A. L. S. Cassell & Co. London, 1890. Mr. Jackson, who is the Curator of the Museums, Royal Gardens, Kew, has embodied in this treatise a great amount of valuable information, well arranged for ready reference.
- ↑ Gardener's Chronicle, 1888.
- ↑ Department of Agriculture Report for 1870, pp. 404-428. Only those are here copied from Dr. Palmer's list which he expressly states are extensively used: Ground-nut (Apios tuberosa); Aesculus californica; Agave amcricana; Nuphar advena; prairie potato (Psoralea esculenta); Scirpus lacustris; Sagittaria variabilis; kamass-root (Camassia esculenta); Solanum Fendleri (supposed by him to be the original of the cultivated potato); acorns of various sorts; mesquite (Algarobia glandulosa); Juniperus occidentalis; nuts of Carya, Juglans, etc.; screw-bean (Strombocarpus pubescens);
