THE PERSIMMON 95
farm eats persimmons greedily. Millions of our people eat ' them occasionally with relish. Nevertheless, the persimmon has not become an important crop in America.
It grows on a million square miles of the southeastern part of our country. It bears fruit profusely,® often as much as the tree can physically support, and many trees bear with great regularity. Yet the persimmon as a crop in American agriculture has not arrived despite its two great chances, one as a forage crop and one as human food.
THE ORIENTAL PERSIMMON INDUSTRY
Our failure to appreciate the persimmon becomes the more conspicuous because persimmons have been a major fruit crop and a standard food in the Orient for many centuries. I am one of many thousands of American erstwhile travelers who hunger for the persimmons of East Asia. How I would like to chew the firm flesh of the persimmons such as I had in Korea, and still more do I crave the soft, luscious golden saucer-full such as I ate week after week through the autumn in Peking.
The Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture * quotes plant explorer Meyer, who had spent years in China, "The fruit of this particular variety (now called in America the tamopan) has a bright orange-red color, grows to a large size, measuring three to five inches in diameter, and sometimes weighs more than a pound. It is perfectly seedless, is not astringent, and can be eaten even when green and hard. It stands shipping remarkably well."
- "Throughout the region where persimmons are found in abundance the fruit is considered as being 'good for dogs, hogs, and 'possums.' Occasionally a family is mentioned as having lived for several months upon the fruit from a single large tree." (United States Department of Agriculture. Farmers' Bulletin 685. The Native Persimmon, by W. F. Fletcher.)
5 "Certain types of persimmons and mulberries in this section have produced tremendous yields." (Professor C. D. Matthews. Department of Horticulture. North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineer ing. Raleigh. North Carolina, letter. September 21, 1927.)
- 1910, p. 435.
