The Florida agriculturist., 1889-01-23
Chocho.
ANOTHER
VALUABLE BUT UNwoRKED
RESOURCE.

RESOURCE.
There is quite extensively cultivated
throughout Central America and well up
into Mexico strange kind of garden
vegetable known in Central America as
Chocho, and in Mexico as Chayota. It's
botanical name, as recognized by all
civilized nations, is Sechium edule. 1t
is a rampant-growing viner, the vine
being of rank character, and running to
great length under favorable circum-
stances. Upon the vine is borne an inn
mense quantity of fruit, which is hard to
describe, owing to the fact that we have
in this country nothing like it to refer to
in comparison. We might say the fruit
is somewhat pear-shaped, but that would
convey merely faint idea of it's outline
while lying in a particular position, for
it is flatish as well as lOngish, and ap-
pears pear-shaped only when viewed in
line with it's short diameter. 1t is usual
ly from four to seven inches i'll length
from stem to opposite end, and from
three to five inches in diameter near the
end furthest from the stem, measuring
through the thickest way. There ap-
pears to be two well-marked varieties OF
it, as shown in color OF fruit, the fruit OF
one variety being of a pale green, while
that of the other is clear white inclining
very slightly towards cream color. In
all other respects the fruit of the two is
exactly alike. There seems to be no reg
ular skin or rind on the fruit, but only a
thin soft cuticle, as it were, which gives it
the appearance of having been but lately
peeled. Indeed, the whole fruit looks
more like a delicate piece of WaX-work
than anything we could compare it to.
The surface is slightly ridged, and these
ridges come together on the largest end
with a peculiar sort of irregularity which
gives them the appearance Ofhaving been
gathered with q thread and drawn in
ward with the same pulled from the in
terror.
A very marked popularity of this
strange fruit lies in the fact that it has no
seeds. To propagate the plant the entire
fruit must be planted. In starting to
grow two or three vines burst out from
the irregular edges or folds at the large
end, also many coarse roots, the vines
ranging upward of course and the roots
making their way down into the soil.
The people of Central America and Mex
leo cut up, cook and use the fruit very
much as we do garden squashes. They
are said to esteem it highly, and persons
familiar with those countries mention it
as figuring as one of their most import
ant garden vegetables. It's flavor, when
cooked, is something like thatof our com
mon bush squashes, but it goes much
further than the squash as relates to ex-
ternal size, for it has no interior cavity,
being all solid "meat" and entirely alike
through and through. Really, the entire
fruit might be termed an unbroken ker-
mel without shell. In it's maturity it has
about the irmness of an eggplant fruit,
being, say, a little softer than a turnip.
The root OF this plant is large, feshy
and very rich i'll starch, and it is said the
people OF the countries already named
make use of the root as vegetable for
the table as much as they do OF the fruit.
1t is prepared something after our man
ner of preparing the sweet potato, or per-
haps more like the cassava is prepared.
1t is largely employed in making Gus
taPdS.
Rather more than half q century ago
this remarkable plant was introduced into
South Carolina from Central America,
and for many years after it was pretty
extensively cultivated about Charleston
as garden vegetable, under the Central
American name of Chocho. 1t succeeded
to perfection, and the people liked it very
much, but from some eunaccOuntable cause
it gradually went out of culture-the fact
OF there being no seed, which created the