readily utilized, as seen in Fig. 66.  Like the asparagus bud, the bamboo sprout grows to its full height between April and August, even when it exceeds thirty or even sixty feet in height.  The buds spring from fleshy underground stems or roots whose stored nourishment permits this rapid growth, which in its earlier stages may exceed twelve inches in twenty-four hours.  But while the full size of the plant is attained the first season, three or four years are required to ripen and harden the wood sufficiently to make it suitable for the many uses to which the stems are put.  It would seem that the time must come when some of the many forms of bamboo will be introduced and largely grown in many parts of this country.

Lotus roots form another article of diet largely used and widely cultivated from Canton to Tokyo.  These are seen in the lower section of Fig. 70, and the plants in bloom in Fig. 71, growing in water, their natural habitat.  The lotus is grown in permanent ponds not readily drained for rice or other crops, and the roots are widely shipped.

Sprouted beans and peas of many kinds and the sprouts of other vegetables, such as onions, are very generally seen in the markets of both China and Japan, at least during the late winter and early spring, and are sold as foods, having different flavors and digestive qualities, and no doubt with important advantageous effects in nutrition.

Ginger is another. crop which is very widely and extensively cultivated.  It is generally displayed in the market in the root form.  No one thing was more generally hawked about the streets of China than the water chestnut.  This is a small corm or fleshy bulb having the shape and size of a small onion.  Boys pare them and sell a dozen spitted together on slender sticks the length of a knitting needle.  Then there are the water caltropes, grown in the canals producing a fruit resembling a horny nut having a shape which suggests for them the name “buffalo-horn”.  Still another plant, known as water-grass (Hydropyrum latifolium) is grown in Kiangsu province where the land is too wet for rice.  The plant has a tender succulent crown of leaves and the peeling of the outer coarser ones away suggests the husking of an ear of green corn.  The portion eaten is the central tender new growth, and when cooked forms a delicate savory dish.  The farmers’ selling price is three to four dollars, Mexican, per hundred catty, or $.97 to $1.29 per hundredweight, and the return per acre is from $13 to $20.

The small number of animal products which are included in the market list given should not be taken as indicating the proportion of animal to vegetable foods in the dietaries of these people.  It is nevertheless true that they are vegetarians to a far higher degree than are most western nations, and the high maintenance efficiency of the agriculture of China, Korea and Japan is in great measure rendered possible by the adoption of a diet so largely vegetarian.  Hopkins,