The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1907-12-06
GARDEN OF fIE:-
TY BUCKETS.
It is Run by a Cinnamon and
Grows Crops.
In The Short Space of Five Days.
"a Water Being the Soil and
Sunlight.

: A garden of buckets in which 9
4yegetable product is raised in five
'days and crop produced every day
In the year is carried on in Phila-
do hia Chinatown by Lee Ling. The
! garden consists of fifty cedar buckets
and in them Lee raises at a profit
of 700 per cent a product called liza
choy, or II chow which is largely
used in Chinese cooking, says the
Philadelphia Ledger.
Lees garden is one on which the
sun never shines. There is no till
ing of the soil, for there is no soil /;
neither is there any wedding for
weeds have no opportunity to grow.
Water is the agency which makes
things thrive in the garden. Liza choy
is sprouts from a Chinese bean.
These beans are imported. They
are about the size of a small pea,
and have a hard shiny olive-green
shell.
The sprouts from the bean are as
white as the most perfectly bleach
ed celery and have a sweet spicy
taste that savors of the artichoke or
tender spring radish. At their high
est stage of development they are
] about four inches in length and as
thick as the ordinary lead pencil.
Whoever has eaten chop suey or
yockemain in a Chinese restaurant
has eaten liza choy, for these and
many other dishes prepared by the
Orientals can scarcely be served
without it AS result thousands Of
pounds of the product is used every
week.
But the garden in which liza choy
is grown by Lee Ling is an interest
ing thing. Side by side in the cor
ner of long dark room, fifty wood
en- buckets with battened tops are
arranged. Into two or three OF
these are put two pounds of Chinese
beans each.
The little green pellets are then COW
cred with luke warm water and
allowed to stand. Gradually they alb
sorb the water and by the end OF the
first day they have swelled to twice
their normal size. More water is
then sprinkled over them and the
covers of the buckets are replaced.
At the end of the second day the
Jackets of the beans have burst and
a tiny sprout appears. In the mean
time a fresh quantity of beans has
been put into two or three olher
buckets and treated as in the first
case. Every day nav lot OF seeds
are planted in additional buckets
SO that at all times there are crops
in various stages of development.
BY the end of the third day the
beans in the first bucket have sent
out sprouts an inch long, which
begin 10 curl and twist in every d.
rection. The mass of vegetable mat
ter has swollen until the buckets are
half full of what at first glance re-
sembles a lot of coarsely chopped
cabbage.
From this time forth cool spring
water is poured over the sprouiing
growth gradually swells up in the
buckets until at the end OF the
fouth day the vessel is filled with a
mass of clear whiteshoots. The tops
of the buckets are fastened down ana
the sprouts turn and twist and in
terlace in the darkness.
Gradually the power exerted by the
growing roots becomes such that IL
is necessary to release the tops OF the
pals. The liza choy then expands I'M
til the white curly mass extends i've
or six inches above the top OF the
vessel.
From the bottow of the buck
ct to the very top or the
growth there is nothing but mass
of clean crisp white sprouts. Inc
pals are then emptied and the
sprouts are shaken up and raked
over by hand until they all ie do
loose as so many straws In apple.
The green shells Of the beans are
picked out and then the liza choy IS
put In baskets and placed In the
btore for sale.
The buckets are put back In place
and fresh beans are put into them
So by planting in succession In the
various vessels as the crops are
completed there is never-ending
supply of the liza choy.
The imported beans planted In the
strange garden cost about five cents
IA pound. From the two POUNDS
placed in the bucket about sixteen
pounds of liza choy is grown. The pro-
duct sells for five cents a pound
Therefore on an investment OF ten
cents Lee Ling obtains a salable
commodity valued at eighty cents.
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