Evening star., 1939-10-02
Vegetables Grown
In Strange Forms
On Nearby Farm
Odd Feuts Performed
With Garden Produce
By lobbyist Weinstein
BY JOHN J. DAILY.

BY JOHN J. DAILY.
Across the hills from Anacostia,
within earshot of the Potomac River,
Is a farm where grow peculiar vege-
tables, oddities in plant life whose
seeds come from all over the world.
There are cucumbers that look like
snakes, Chinese chestnuts with ele-
phant tusks and Peruvian pickles
that, when left to dry on their stems,
turn out to resemble mocking birds.
Also, an artillery bean that fires
salute
Hyman Weinstein of Massillon,
Ohio, Is responsible for all these
freaks of nature that growin one of
the most curious gardens on earth.
A former travelling salesman with a
penchant for plant study, he gave
up the road some IL years ago for
the farm. He has acreage in his
native Ohio, another farm in Flor
ida and he rents the Maryland
ground so he may be near his son
Irving, who intends to enter the
University of Maryland to study
chemical engineering.
A hobby with Mr.. Weinstein, his
freak gardening actually costs him
money. All he wants is the thrill
of growing some queer plant. For
instance, he has developed a plant
with leaves that he believes will live
forever And that is its name-Live
Forever. The leaf is from a seed
grown in the Mesopotamian Valley
and is called Byrophillium. If you
take one of these leaves and pin it
on a curtain in the living room it
will sprout a series of perennials.
That is, it goes on, and on, and on
without even benefit of water.
Red celery, blue celery, pink celery
and even green celery are grown
in the Weinstein gardens-a 40
acre tract where all the laws of
nature are defied.
Nature. for example, never meant
that a soy bean should come out
Of the earth as a frijole, the basis
for chilli con carne, but Mr.. Wein-
stein can take a frijole bean and
develop it into Mexican jumping
bean with the least effort. In short,
he is a magician in the garden.
His unusual assemblage of plants,
and their offspring includes more
than 100 strange creatures of the
vegetable kingdom. Some of them
are:
Plants so sensitive they fold up
and wilt away if touched, straw
berries without runners, an Aus
tralian vine with seed pods shaped
like birds, plants which actually
eat insects and other plants that
catch flies. There are called the
Venus fly traps. Someof the carni-
vorous plants must be fed raw meat
when they cannot catch sufficient
insects to sustain life.
Jobs Tears are cereal in the
Orient, a cereal that children like
just as they do in America; but
Mr.. Weinstein takes Jobs Tears
and turns them into necklaces. The
process is very simple. He lets Jobs
Tears harden on the vine, strips
them off and then makes ornaments
for milady. The once pliable plant
turns to stone.
You probably have heard of Chi
nese chestnuts, but you have never
seen Chinese chestnuts until Mr..
Weinstein shows them to you in
his garden-a garden, by the way
that is just few miles south of
st. Elizabeths Hospital.
"It all sounds screwy, doesn't it?"
Mr. Weinstein asks, as ne shows his
collection. However. it's just a
hobby with me-and I get a lot of
fun doing tricks with plants" He
works on the farm of Mrs. John
Lingrell, where they were used to
doing things on an orthodox basis.
Mrs. Lingrell, of old Pennsylvania
Dutch stock, was once a familiar
figure in the old Center Market,
where she was known as Apple
Maryland she smiles when she
looks on the work of her tenant
farmer-the only one of his kind in
America. Until Mr.. Weinstein's ar
rival, Mrs. Lingrell, who has lived on
a farm all of her 60-odd years, had
never seen white eggplant. In this
part of the country most folks are
familiar with the red eggplant, but
the white eggplant comes strictly as
9 novelty. 1t is supposed to be "the
darb" of all eggplants.
To add further to the confusion,
this unusual gardener grows corn
that exhibits every color of the rain
bow. He has, too, cabbages that grow
on stalks 6 feet high-stalks that
can be made into walking canes.
II you want to see some freak
gardening all you have to do is 20
over the Anacostia Bridge to the
Farm where Hyman Weinstein
cracks the whip over the vegetable
kingdom.