The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1899-10-12
AMERICANS EAT LOTUS.
1T Is NOT A BAD SORT OF FOOD,
EITHER, PERHAPS.

Lily Bulbs ps Food-water Cbestnuts.
The discovery that there are lotus
eaters in this country must be credited
to experts of tho Department OF Agri-
culture Mt Washington who have ascer-
tanned the fact incidentally to special
investigation which they have been
making in regard to Asiatic vegeta-
bles, writes Rene Bache in the Detroit
Free Press. Now that the Pacific
Ocean has become an American lake,
and Yankee enterprise is on the alert
to gobblc up whatever may be avail
able for use on the other side of that
large pond, it is considered worth
while TO find out whether they have
any food-plants over there that would
be welcome addition to those already
utilized in the United States. The
commission appointed by Secretary
James Wilson to look into the subject
he's learned that there are many such,
and has verified its conclusions by
cooking and eating them, as we'll as
by analyzing them in order to deter
mine how much nutriment they con-
tain.
One Of these plants is the lotus, the
roots of which are largely eaten by
orientals III San Francisco, being i'm.
ported from Canton, and are on sale
in the markets of the Chinese quarter
through the late winter aud spring
months. They are reddish inside and
are boiled for the table usually, though
sometimes are consumed raw. A kind
of "arrowroot" preparation is made
from them also. In China parts of the
blossoms are used for the toilet, the
leaf stalks furnish lamp wicks, the
seeds are employed for soup and as a
remedy for indigestion, and tho roots
become an important article of food
in times of famine, fifty per cent. of
their substance being starch. The
Egyptians, too, obtain valuable -four
from the seeds, roasted and ground,
and bake it into bread.
EXPERIMENTS WITH THE LOTUS.
One reason why the economic use
fulness of the lotus is so interesting is
that the plant has been introduced into
this country within the last few years,
for ornamental purposes. Expert
ments in its cultivation have been in
progress for some time in various
parts of the United States, and have
been unexpectedly successful. 1t is
found to tolerate the severe winters
of the middle East, and the short but
hot summers give it an ample season
to perfect its beautiful flowers, which
somewhat resemble gigantic roses. In
the grounds of the Department of Agri-
culture at Washington is pond that
is one great lotus bed in July and
August of each year, the magnificent
blossoms attracting much admiration.
In California and the Southern States
there are many districts specially
suited to the plant, which is an aqua
tic, and in the great interior water
way of the former, comprising the
Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers,
it could scarcely fail to be successful.
The identity of the vegetable, pos
sibly only mythical, consumed by the
storied "lotophagi," or lotus-e eaters,
who were rendered by it forgetful of
home and friends, has been much dis
puted. Certainly it was not the same
as the lotus here described, which
anciently in Egypt was sacred en-
blem, intimately associated with re-
ligion and poetry. The Egyptian
plant, indeed, was prevailing motive
in the designs of early painters and
sculptors of that nation, and to this
day it survives conspicuously in archi-
tecture-as, for example, in the cap
itals of columns. 1t was then, as it
is now, of Importance as food-pro-
ducer, not only in the region of the
Nile, but also among Asiatic peoples.
From the viewpoint of the Govern
ment experts, the easiest way to ex-
anime Asiatic food-plants was TO buy
them in San Francisco, where many
of them are always on sale, being i'm
ported for consumption by the Chi
nese. A visit to the markets of the
Oriental quarter in that city reveals
to the eye of c nonresident much that
is both strange and interesting. Most
of the curious roots, green vegetables,
seeds, etc, making up the stock-in-
trade of the slant-eyed groceryman
are wholly unfamiliar, some of them
being brought directly from Canton,
while others, though grown in Amer
lean soil, are Asiatic in origin. They
afford a subject of study from which,
it is believed, much may be learned
that is of value. 1t is not without
reason that the Chinese are said to
understand better than any other peo-
pie the art of obtaining from a given
area of land tho greatest possible
amount of food material, and one way
in which they accomplish this is by
utilizing large variety of food-plants.
LILY BULBS AS FOOD.
In this country lilies are considered
rs of use only for ornamental purposes,
but in Asia the bulbs and also the
flowers OF several species have long
been used as articles of food. Both
the Chinese and the Japanese eat
them habitually, and one kind fur
nishes the hairy Amos of the island
of Yezo-the northern limit of tho
Mikado's empire-with their chief
vegetable diet. From early December
to late in August the bulbs of an edible
lily, imported from Canton, are found
in the Chinese markets of San Fran
cisco, where they are sold at ten to
twenty cents pound. What seems
to be the same species may also be OBJ
toina6 In lpia1 otota tbrovc,ho 4Lo