218 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY

MANGO PRESERVES the liquid and reheating cooks fruit without breaking it. The has proven by test to be one of the best of our tropical FRIED MANGOES fruits for the making of preserves °and sweet pickles, surpassing even the Peel mangoes and cut in neat sec peach, and it is quite possible that oth tions. Fry in butter or drippings and ers of the fiberless group may prove sprinkle with salt and sugar. Serve hot. equally good.

Peel mangoes and cut in neat sec MANGO tions. Place in boiling syrup made Make your plain ice cream as basis. with one cup granulated sugar to each quart of sliced fruit with water to. form To each quart add one pint ripe mango pulp and freeze. ' • syrup. Copk carefully until well ster ilized. Place in jars and seal at once. MANGO SUNDEA

MANGO SWEET PICKLE For this most delicious of all deserts 1 Select small ripe mangoes. Peel and have mangoes cut in half either length place in stone jar, cover with syrup or cross-wise, and well iced. When made by boiling equal parts siigar and ready to serve fill cavity made by re vinegar with sufficient whole cloves, all moving seed with plain vanilla ice spice and cinnamon to produce desired cream;. The Mulgoba, Amini, Totofari, flavor. When cold drain and reheat Nucka, Cambodiatia and Cecil are all liquid and again pour over fruit. Re adapted to this method of serving and peat several times. The last time place one has the real of eating the fruit in boiling syrup and when well dish as well as the contents. It has heated put in wide mouth jars. Seal at proven quite popular at cafe and lunch once.' The continued draining off of counters as well as at the home table.

THE DASHEEN AND ITS CULTURE

Wm, H. F. Gomme, Lake Countjr

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: new to most of you, is of ancient ori Having been requested by the chair gin, having been evidently cultivated in man on Sub-Tropical Fruits to prepare China, hence the name "De la Chine," a paper on same, I take pleasure in ad which being translated from the French dressing you on the new commodity, means "from China"; this derivation namely, the Dasheen or Colocasia escu- is uncertain, but it is thought by Meffes lentum. This plant, though apparently Barrett Young4:o be fairly authentic. FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 219

For the last few years I have been used for other purposes, the cutting* of growing this useful plant at - same is not advised unless short of seed. ville, Florida, in the United States De When plants are a few inches high, partment of Agriculture's Foreign it is advisable to cultivate with five Plant and Seed Introduction Field Sta tooth cultivator or bull tongue, so erad tion, and had ample opportunity for icating obnoxious weeds, which later studying its value. The Dasheen con appear unsightly and in the way when tains a higher per cent of protein than harvesting. Cultivation should be kept Irish or sweet potatoes, and can in this up to conserve moisture, at intervals, Southern climate be grown easier, and the last three cultivations a six- yield more, and is a better keeper than inch plow should be used, throwing the either of the commodities just men soil gradually to the plant. Care must tioned. It can be cooked and used the be exercised at this operation in not same way as the Irish potato, i. e., bak cutting the rootlets, which in dry season ing, boiling and for suffing, and in ad feed close to the surface. Cutting off dition, almost the whole of the plant roots in cultivation will retard the yield can be used for culinary purposes, the and growth, and the lower leaves will leaves for spinach and the bleached turn yellow. Planting should take place shoots for asparagus. about March 1st, the plant will ma Where an acre or more is planted, it ture about the end of October, though is found advantageous to plant in check tubers can be harvested in July three by four, or three and a half by and August. three. This method does away with a Cultivation should cease at the end considerable portion of hoeing, which of August or the beginning of Septem is an expensive item. The hammocks ber, when the leaves of the plant sup are best adapted to this plant, and seed ply sufficient cover to keep down weeds tubers weighing from one and a half to and keep in moisture. Maturing of the two ounces, are planted practically one plants can be noticed by the yellowing inch below the level, a three inch bull and the dying back of the base leaves, tongue run down the rows twice, makes and the -plant itself will have a yellow a sufficient depression for planting, tub ish hue with yellow spots on the leaves. ers can be dropped in the row at a disr It is not advisable to plant Dasljeen tance of three or three and a half feet, on muck or high pine soil. The muck and covered by running the bull tongue soils produce excellent leaf growth, but along one side, or the hind teeth of a the quality and keeping propensities of Planet Junior five tooth run along each the tubers are poor. On high pine land side at one operation. The seed tubers the soil is usually too dry and lacking should not be cut, but planted whole, in humus/ corms or large tubers, weighing from Harvesting takes place about No one to five pounds, can be cut in half vember, either before or after frost, a transversely, but as these corms can be light frost will kill the foliage to the 220 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY-

ground, though not injuring the tubers, it is hoped that the public taste will be but it is advisable to harvest as soon further educated to it eventually. The after a frost as practicable; the crop can Dasheen should never be eaten raw on be dug by hand or plowed out. On account of its slight acidity, the three small areas the former method is rec Trinidad, varieties on which the De ommended as less tubers are damaged. partment of Agriculture are now work On large areas, free from stumps, the ing, contain apparently less acridity ten-inch plow is practicable; this can be than any of the Colocasias. Dasheens, run under the clumps, turning them ov when cooked in any way, entirely lose er completely. Harvesting by hand this acridity and are extremely palata can be operated by three men, one with ble, having the flavor of a good Irish a spade, loosening the cfumps, the oth potato, blended with chestnut. er pulling them over to one side, gxpos- Excellent flour can be made from the ing the roots and shaking off superflu Dasheen by a process of slicing, baking ous soil. The diggers should be fol and pulverizing, and when used with lowed up by another man who breaks ten per cent other flour, excellent break the clump, pulls off the leaves and ex fast cakes can be made. A quantity poses the corms and tubers to the air of Dasheens were sent to Dr. D. H. and sun to dry, The cdrms and tubers Kellogg, of Battle Creek, Michigan, should remain in the field a few days who used them in his Sanitarium* so in until thoroughly dry, wheii they can be the future we might perhaps look for picked up and stored. At first, the crop "Puffed Dasheeik." An excellent sub should be stored in a covered place with stitute for asparagus can be made from plenty of air, being sheltered from rain this plant by pulling the soil to the and spread put not deeper than six young shoots as they grow, so bleach inches, later they can be pulled into ing them, and when about eight inches heaps if not required for immediate use, long, they can be cut and cooked with but they must be examined from time cream gravy. Another cutting can be to time to prevent decay. made from the same tubers in about An acre of Dasheens has yielded over three weeks to a month consecutively. three hundred bushels, and it takes ap Personally I should like to see a small proximately one bushel to seed an acre. patch of Dasheens on the farms in Flor As yet, ,-rio market has recognized this ida, as children readily take to them.. useful commodity to a great extent, and