Early Experiences with the Chayote

172 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1947

Terminal buds were removed from girdled effect of the terminal bud upon the lateral branches of the Haden variety of mango, buds were conducted on forked branches. and all leaves were removed from the area When the terminal bud and the leaves were between the girdle and the cut end at various removed from one branch of the fork and intervals to determine the minimum length the lateral buds were removed from the of time that was required for the hormone other branch, lateral flower clusters ap to influence floral development. In 1945, peared from the buds at the end of the growth from these lateral buds was vege leafless branch (Fig.l). The hormone pro tative if the leaves were removed 24 hours duced in the leaves moved down that branch after girdling and the removal of the ter and up the leafless branch and caused minal bud. When leaves were allowed to growth in those buds to be floral. The in remain for 96 hours or longer flower clus hibiting effect of the terminal bud was not ters developed. observed to move into an adjacent branch. In 1946, an attempt was made through However, flower clusters appeared from histological studies to correlate the length lateral buds below the girdle which indi of this period with cell division. A longer cates that the transmission of the inhibiting period was required because drought delayed effect was intercepted by the girdle. growth. Evidence from these studies indi cates that the hormone does not initiate Flower formation was caused by the ac growth and cannot affect the course of the tion of the hormone in buds previously development of a bud until cell division has unspecialized as late as March 4, 194'6. The started. fact is emphasized that floral initiation be Studies of the movement of the floral- gins shortly before the flower cluster is inducing hormone and the growth-inhibiting clearly discernible.

EARLY EXPERIENCES WITH THE CHAYOTE

By David Fairchild it should be given another chance to take Coconut Grove, Florida its place among the excellent vegetables of our southern states.

When the members of the Florida Horti Feeling as I do that the chayote is worthy cultural Society see on the program the of a more extensive trial than was ever name "Chayote," and that I am giving some given it, I thought it would be helpful to notes on it, I am sure there will be those give you some account of the experiences who will smile and say: "Fairchild is back my colleagues and I had with it in the early at his old game; trying to cram this so- days of the Section of Seed and Plant In called 'new' vegetable down our throats troduction of the Department of Agricul again." ture. Nothing of the kind. Fifty years ago It was at Christmas time in 1895, forty- I did get a lot of people to grow the chayote nine years ago, that I first saw a chayote and thousands of them learned to like it, arbor. I had stopped off.in New Orleans buta combination of the root knot and on my way to the West Indies and was in other factors which I propose to describe, the seed store of Stechler and Co. inter discouraged them. Now, however, with the viewing them about the various local fruits possibility in sight of controlling its worst and vegetables. enemy, the nematode, it seems to me that They told me of a little French horti- FAIRCHILD: EXPERIENCES WITH CHAYOTE 173

culturist in the suburbs who had an arbor As soon as we started the Plant Intro of chayotes, so of course I went out to see duction Garden in the wilds of western him. Florida, cutting down great forest trees in There were no fruits on his vine at that a hammock near Brooksville to make room season, and he told me that not many were for it, we began to experiment with the being grown around New Orleans. They chayote in earnest. were usually known as "Merlitons" or To begin with, there was the question of "Vegetable Pears." whether we had the best varieties. The I saw them again when we got to Jamaica chayote, Sechinm edule, belongs to what is and became fond of them and sent some known as a monotypic genus; that is, a home. genus with only one species in it, so that Mrs. Fairchild and I spent several weeks there were no close relatives. But were in Maderia some years later and saw them there not perhaps many different varieties? grown to perfection. In this tiny island in Two, a white and a green more or less mid-Atlantic it seemed to play a really im spiney form were all that had been tried portant role in the dietary of the people. in America or in North Africa, where it There was a fine large arbor near the hotel was grown for the French market, or in where we stopped that furnished fruits for the West Indies or Madeira so far as we the table. There seemed to be but one va knew. riety grown; an ivory-white kind. We We ransacked the world for other sorts bought dozens of them and photographed and discovered that the ones we already them in fancy baskets. had were the usual types. However, from We got to like them very much and I sent Costa Rica a keen observer named Carlos some to the office for we were convinced Werckle sent, among others, a kind that that the chayotes deserved to become a reg had no fibers around the seed and William ular vegetable on the American market. Harris of Kingston, Jamaica, sent five va Our first efforts to grow them had al rieties. The J. Steckler Seed Co. of New ready been made, at Cat Island, on the estate Orleans supplied us with their green, spiney of General Alexander, a remarkable soldier sort; a large green and a large white we of the Confederacy and one of the witnesses obtained from Puerto Rico; from Guada- of Pickett's famous Charge. They were loupe came five kinds we had already seen; carried on by John Tull, who was experi Dr. Trabut contributed the white spiney menting with the General's wild rushes. one grown in Algiers for the Paris markets. For two seasons Tull grew chayotes and But it was not until Wilson Popenoe, rushes in the abandoned rice fields on the then our Agricultural Explorer in Central old plantation with "encouraging results'' America, made a study of the Gautemalan so far as the chayotes were concerned. A chayote and wrote them up with his usual two year old vine together with a three care that we felt we had our hands on some year old one produced 250 fruits in 1905. thing more than merely a few slightly dif We also subsidized a cucumber grower in ferent varieties of the fruit. the outskirts of Jacksonville, thinking he He distinguished between the common might. take up their culture, but we soon "guisquiles" as they are called in Guate saw that there was too much yet to learn mala, which were what we had been experi about the plant and how it could be made menting with, and the Peruvian guisquiles a commercial success. It is surprising to called commonly "peruleros." The guis find how many problems arise when you quiles were furrowed, with more or less try to introduce and popularize a new vege deep sutures and might be either spiney or table like the chayote smooth and in color' either light green, 174 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1947

deep green or white, and in form either tivity of the chayote. Not until we had the pyriform or round, but the peruleros were authenticated account of one vine that devoid of spines, round, without sutures, climbed, in twelve months from seed, up and were either green or white. They var over a porch, half way round the house ied in size, weighing from three to nine and over some telegraph wires into two oak ounces. They were most attractive and trees and, beginning to bear in August, pro • their smoothness made them easy to pre duced before frost cut it down in December, pare. They also had a superior flavor. over four hundred fruits, did we believe This careful work of Wilson Popenoe any of them. was done in the autumn of 1916. When his Later on, Mr. Pierpont of Savannah, shipment arrived it showed us that we were Georgia, topped all the other records witb just beginning the study of this new vege two plants which,- in the rich alluvial soil table. The collection was carefully planted, of the Isle of Hope, covered trellises nearly on well-made trellises, but as often happens an acre in extent and bore over 1500 fruits when species from the high mountains—in in one season. this case from an altitude of 5,000 feet- One of the curious complications, which are transplanted to sea level, even though I believe is rather a unique one, in growing it is farther north, they grew poorly, pro the chayote, comes from the fact that its duced only a very few fruits and gradually fruits have only a single large seed and that disappeared. this seed is imbedded in the flesh of the There was something peculiarly exciting fruit in such a way that you have to plant to me in walking under an arbor of chay- the whole thing—fruit and all. This fruit otes,—there still is. In the first place the as it shrivels up and decays furnishes the fruits are as handsome as though they were nourishment for the young plant. In carved of green jade or white ivory. I planting, the whole fruit is set in the ground can never keep my hands off them they are so that its large end lies deepest in the so clean and so pleasant to handle. If the earth and the whole is covered with two plant is well grown and vigorous, hundreds inches of soil. of them hang down from the canopy of Our experiments at Brooksville and else green leaves and the picking of them is where, over which Robert Young presided, easy. taught us how to grow the vine and handle The tendrils, a foot or more in length, it in the various regions of Florida, and are so sensitive that they will curl about those of David Bisset in Savannah showed a pencil if you whirl it under their tips, us how the plant could be protected from and once they have made a turn around it freezing in Georgia by putting a box filled they begin that cleverest of the tricks of a with straw over the crown, leaving air for tendril which is to twist a short portion of the plant to breathe but shutting out the the center of itself so that one half be worst of the cold. comes a right-handed and the other a left- Planted in spring when the danger from handed spiral and this shortens the tendril frost is passed, in a hill made in well- and raises the branch close up to its sup drained, rich garden soil, one fruit will port. grow before autumn into a vine requiring a When the small yellow female flowers strong, well-made, head-high arbor, for as are fertilized and the miniature fruits have I have said, it is a rampant grower. set, they grow with astounding rapidity Fifty pounds of well-rotted, barnyard ma and it seems only a few days before they nure, supplemented on poor soils with a are ready to pick. pound and a half of any standard commer Fabqlous were the stories of the produc cial fertilizer that is rich in potash, will PAIRCHILD: EXPERIENCES WITH CHAYOTE 175 keep the vine growing if the other condi we were in no position to follow the matter tions are favorable. Mulching is necessary up commercially. We had no tonnage of in dry weather, for the plant is not accus chayotes of course. tomed to drouths, and in irrigated countries We were satisfied that changes in tem a good supply of irrigation water is always perature induced germination in the chay- required. Since the vine is a perennial it ote fruits. How far- this applies to root or need not be planted every year although tuber vegetables, I do not know. Since after four years plants usually run out and most fruits have seeds which wait for the should be replaced by new ones. decay of the fruit-flesh before they germi My friend Homer Skeels and I got a nate, this experiment may have a certain good deal of amusement out of growing this significance. tropical vegetable in the latitude of Wash There was a feature of the chayote which, ington. When the seasons were long we perhaps owing to our short seasons, never got a modest crop of rather small fruits of took on any importance in our minds. I good quality, but we could never count on refer to the large fleshy root which, among having a long autumn without killing the Indians of Guatemala is considered a frosts, and this uncertainty proved a "lim valuable starchy vegetable. It is boiled iting factor" as they say. Even when the and eaten much as is the yam or sweet po fruits were started in boxes indoors and set tato, and has a flavor of its own which one out as soon as possible in the spring, pref easily becomes accustomed to and learns to erably in cool weather, the growing season like.' was too short. Once we had learned how to produce the It was also a good deal of a problem to fruits of the chayote it seemed as though keep the chayotes we wished to plant out our problems had only just begun. We had in the spring from sprouting during the before us the most difficult of all; the prob winter, for they had a tendency to do this lem of getting people to eat them. whenever there was any considerable change It was easy enough to prepare them for in the temperature about them. the table and when boiled they taste some This difficulty was in our minds when thing like a squash or a cucumber or a one autumn day Mrs. Fair child and I took vegetable marrow. I think the chayote our little children to the Luray Caverns lends itself to more different recipes than which.were then run by their owner, Col. does the squash because of its firmer, more Norcott, a man of very considerable imagi- agreeable texture. Chayote salad, chayote ination. fritters, chayotes fried, creamed, stuffed, As we were walking through the caverns baked and made into pickles; these are some he remarked that the temperature did not of the ways chayotes can be eaten. Even change more than a degree or two, summer a rather close approach to apple sauce can or winter; always about the same, always be made with boiled and mashed chayotes a practically saturated atmosphere with the flavored with fruit juices and spices. temperature around 54. So it was up to us to cook the chayote I told him of our problem with the chay- arid test it on ourselves and our friends ote and he suggested we send him a crate of in as many ways as we could devise and in the fruits to store in the cavern. He would doing this we had some interesting exper watch them and give us a report on their iences. Naturally I was desirous that my behavior. As I recall it, the experiment superiors in the Department should take a was a success; the fruits showed little or fancy to it and help create a market for it. no signs of germinating. His reports will I recall serving creamed chayote at a be found in the records of the office. But luncheon we gave for Mr. and Mrs. Houston 176 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1947

when Mr. Houston was Secretary of Agri suggested he grow dasheens: "Lets try culture. We watched with curiosity and something easier, Fairchild." He tried what satisfaction as Mr. Houston ate it, only to he thought was easier and built the town have the whole effect vitiated by a remark of Hialeah, getting hundreds of people to of Mrs. Houston's that her husband never gamble in real estate with him. knew what he was eating. I cannot remember now how many years Mr. Graham Bell took a liking to the we of the Office kept our propaganda going, chayote and served it at one of his ''Wednes for in April of 1917 the First World War day evenings/' which gave me a chance to came with its upsetting new programs put discuss its qualities. He suggested that it up to us and, although the stream of new would be a good vegetable to try on the plants coming in did not slacken, much ex guests of the National Geographic Society perimental work had to be given up and at one of the Annual Banquets which in the propaganda for the chayotes was curtailed earlier days of the Society were a feature when that for Dehydrated Vegetables had of Washington life. to be started. The Society printed a folder with illus But scattered here and there through the trations describing it and Mr. Haight, the South there remained some adventurous then manager of the Willard Hotel, took planters who still persisted in growing it. the trouble to interest his Chef in it and In 1920 there were some 1275 on our lists it was well served; boiled, in cubes, with a who had received chayotes to experiment white sauce. Everybody ate it and seemed with and we hand-printed and distributed to like it. I had many compliments and widely thousands of illustrated leaflets still more enquiries as to where it could be showing how to grow and how to cook the gotten and if it were on the Washington vegetable. market. Libby, Libby & Co. discovered Most of them however lost their seeds— they made good pickles and wanted to know ate them or fed them to stock—and when where they could get carload lots. in 1929 I tried to get some chayotes to grow Of course it was not on the market. We on my own place in Florida it was with were trying to interest growers to plant it, difficulty that I could find a few fruits with but no grower had yet had the temerity to which to start. put out so much as a dozen acres of it on the gamble that he could sell it at a profit These grew however and I gave away without advertising, especially when he many fruits and some of them came to the knew very well that as soon as he did make attention of my friend Col. E. C. Prentice, a profit, others would go into the raising a retired Army officer, known for his pio of them and undersell him on the market, neer work in aviation. The colonel took taking advantage of the advertising his suc up their culture with vigor and for two cess had given it. This was the joker in years sold all he could produce, on the Miami market. the whole game of starting a new plant industry. Who was going to start it ? With After his death Messrs. Hubbell and no protection of any kind against miscel Stambaugh grew beautiful chayotes under laneous competition, no way of preventing cloth shade, but I have seen no printed the market being flooded with inferior fruits account of their experiments and chayotes which had the right to be sold under the are seen much less often in the market. same name, what man of capital would be In DeLand, Florida, several pioneers took interested in backing the gardener who was up their culture, among them an expert ac willing to grow chayotes? countant, Mr. Dickinson, who told me the As no less a speculator in new things following story: than Glenn Curtiss once said to me when I Enough men became interested in chayote FAIRCHILD: EXPERIENCES WITH CHAYOTE 177 growing around DeLand to produce a large Jesus near the cinder cone of the volcano crop. What to do with it was the question. and saw every little house embowered in a Someone suggested that they combine and vine of the chayote from which hung hun ship a carload to some Northern city. Some dreds of fruits in easy reach of the "cook" other person said he knew a dealer in Chi whose "kitchen" was only a step away. cago who would handle a carload, so they Little children in pretty hand-woven dresses filled the car. Just as they were about to stood about, eating the small green peruleros ship, a wire came from the dealer saying which had been boiled and salted for them. he could not or would not handle so many. For how many centuries these Indians have been eating guisquiles and peruleros with The car was already loaded and since their corn, someone may sometime discover someone else had the name of a Philadephia in the fossilized remains of the kitchen mid dealer it was decided to ship to him, with the result that was to be expected. The dens of their ancestors. dealer found himself in possssion of a white Of course the chayote is not free from diseases. Plant lice attack it, but they can elephant. be controlled by nicotine sulphate sprays. "How do they expect me to sell an entirely Melon and pickle worms sometimes feed on new vegetable which has never been adver the fruits and have to be fought with arsen tised and which nobody ever heard of? ical sprays. When the soil conditions are There is no demand for the thing. What not quite to its taste a fungus disease some shall I do with it?" And a carload of de times attacks the leaves and Bordeaux mix licious chayotes was dumped. ture had been the best remedy for this. But "What's the use of growing something the most disturbing, even tragic factor, was for which there is no market?" was the the root knot disease. In the course of a universal question. year or so the vines usually became infested It is customary for people to look upon with this, the greatest curse of gardening any new vegetable as unimportant until in southern latitudes, and it was necessary it gets into common use where they live, to shift the plantation to new ground, and and they cannot realize what this chayote plant again the new spot, which is a dis means to the inhabitants of Guatemala; to couraging procedure. Guatemaltecans the guisquile is one of the There have now appeared upon the scene most valuable vegetables grown. new, and I am assured, very efficient means When in 1941 Mrs. Fairchild and I vis of rendering a plot of ground comparatively ited the mountain region of Guatemala we free from nematodes. I refer to the use of saw piled up in the picturesque markets Dow Chemical Co.'s "Dowfume," Shell great heaps of guisquiles and peruleros Chemical Coporation's "D-D" and "Larva- which Quiche Indians had brought down cide/ a product of Innis, Speiden & Co. from their cornstalk towns on the slope of This discovery will, I hope, give a new the Volcan de Agua. Maria served them impetus to chayote growing and perhaps to us in Casa Popenoe in Antigua with a some other amateur will originate sorts bet butter sauce and we realized that we had ter suited to Florida conditions than the formed a very inadequate idea of the deli ones Col. Prentice worked with, and which cate character of this vegetable we had may have as fine a flavor as the peruleros. grown years ago; that here there was a The slow growth in popularity of thf real and important problem for some good chayote will hardly satisfy anyone with a horticulturist; the breeding and selection manufacturers point of view. He will speak of these strikingly different forms of of the radio, good roads, modern automo chayote. * %{> biles as having all become necessities during We visited the town of Santa Maria de the years in which the chayote has been so 178 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1947

slowly establishing itself in the taste of It is slowly and tediously that a new Americans. But I am not convinced that vegetable such as the chayote must work its these things are comparable. Consider the way into the good graces of a people and millions of dollars that have gone into the earn its right to be classed as an established advertising of any manufactured product table vegetable on their menus. with the almost complete lack of any put A dealer in one of our big ciites found into attempts to push the chayote and you himself burdened with a large shipment of become aware that a comparison is impos sible. I venture the statement that more chayotes which he could not sell under their money was spent in advertising instant strange name but when he called them postum than was expended by the Gov "Trellis Squashes' he sold them readily. ernment in the introduction of new foreign Perhaps people hesitate to buy a vegetable plants for the whole country during the the name of which they don't know how to past 32 years. pronounce.

RESEARCH IN TROPICAL HORTICULTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

Arthur L. Stahl, S. J. Lynch, tude of Central India and Arabia. It is so Margaret J. Mustard located that it is easily accessible by boat, University of Miami rail, and air to all the tropical American Coral Gables, Florida countries. Dr. Wilson Popenoe, who is an expert Ever since the establishment of the Uni on tropical and subtropical fruits, has this versity of Miami, its trustees and officials to say concerning research on tropical have been cognizant of the important role fruits: 'The thickly populated countries of that agriculture, and especially horticulture, the temperate zone must look more and more plays in the economic and aesthetic life of to the tropics to supplement their own food the South Florida area and tropical Amer resources by direct supplies made possible ica. Even though they have been over- in ever-increasing measure by ever-improv busy in building up a material as well as a ing means of transporation. Many fruits first-class scholastic institution, they have of the tropics, not all of them so important, not lost sight of the fact that teaching and yet all valuable in degrees in the dietary research in tropical agriculture are impor of the race, must be grown in ever increas tant contributions of a university so sit ing quantities, not only to supply temperate uated climatically and geographically as is zone markets, but also, and even more im the University of Miami. portant, to enable the native populations of There is no place in the United States the tropics to obtain abundantly and cheaply better situated to undertake the establishing this most wholesome source of human of a well-rounded educational center for energy." research and teaching in tropical agriculture Some of the staff of the University of than the University of Miami. Miami is Miami have already made valuable contri 600 miles farther south than San Diego butions to horticulture. Dr. Walter M. Bus- and approximately 80 miles from the Tropic well, curator of the herbarium, assisted by of Cancer. It is 2§0 miles farther south Mr. Roy C. Woodbury, has built up a splen than Cairo, Egypt, and has the same lati did herbarium of tropical and subtropical