Petsai, or, as the Chinese have it, Pe-tsai, is a substitute for the cabbage.  In appearance it is as different from cabbage as can be imagined.  It is tall and cylindrical and its leaves are narrow, delicately curled, with frilled edges.  The petsai can, however, be grown on any soil where the ordinary cabbage could be cultivated and in many sections where the native vegetable would languish.  We are told it is no uncommon thing for a petsai to reach sixty pounds in weight.  Department of Agriculture officials, however, advise that it be plucked when about eight pounds in weight, its flavor being then the most delicate and appealing.

This new importation, Uncle Sam’s experts hope, will cause a drop in the price of dinners.  Cabbage long ago ceased to be a cheap dish.  But petsai requires none of the care which has to be lavished on cabbage and will thrive in almost any climate and any soil.

The soy bean, once started, grows wild and yields several crops a season.  It can be prepared in a multitude of ways, from baking to a delicious salad.  According to Doctor Yamei Kin, the head of the Women’s Medical School near Pekin, milk can be made from it to cost about six cents a quart and equal to cows’ milk.  It would be a blessing if we could get rid of the sacred but unclean cow.  One of the state dairy inspectors told me, “We consider milk a filthy product.”

It may be remembered that, only twenty years ago, almost all the dates consumed here came from the oases of Arabia and the valley of the Euphrates.  To-day there are more than a hundred varieties successfully produced in California and Arizona.  The wonders of today are the commonplaces of to-morrow, and there is no telling to what apparently impossible lengths science will go to relieve people of the burden they now bear in the price of food.  It has scoured the ends of the earth for new delicacies and now experts will do their best to teach the people to use them.

Have you ever heard of "Whitloof" or "Belgian Chicory" or have you ever dined in one of the better restaurants of large city where they have served during the winter months a salad composed of golden blanched oblong leaves about 2 inches wide and 5 inches long, only the outer edges showing a faint green?  It is as delicate as the perfume of roses, as crisp as young lettuce, as delicious as asparagus, and as ornamental upon the table as the freshest fruit.

In former years this salad had to be imported and you had to pay dear for a portion of it, a good reason why so few people know it.  A Belgian farmer located near New York has grown many thousands of these plants this past summer.

How would you like to grow this dainty salad right in your living room and cut several crops from a single planting lasting nearly three months?  Secure an 8-inch pot and plant in it 12 roots packed in light sandy soil or pure sand.  Invert another but empty 8-inch pot over this to keep out the light, place in a heated room, water daily, and in from three to four weeks you will find full-grown crowns, beautifully blanched ready for cutting.  Six of such crowns make a large portion, sufficient for an entire family.