CHICORY.
A ragged, sprawling weed has caught the eyes of every boy or girl who tramps along country roads, for it opens its blue flowers early in the morning, and closes them about noon. The result is that the plant is lovely in the morning, and ugly the rest of the day.
This chicory, or succory, is called "wild bache lor's button." It is scattered as a wild plant over Europe and America, in many places escaped from cultivation. It belongs to the Composite Family with the dandelions and the lettuces and the sun flowers. Its bitter juice has medicinal properties. In many communities it still is the standard home remedy for jaundice and other liver complaints.
We do not hear of chicory as a commercial crop in this country, but we shall in time. In Europe it is grown extensively for the roots. These fleshy tubers are used as a substitute, or adulterant, for coffee.
The roots are cleaned by washing, then trimmed, sliced and dried in kilns, roasted until dark brown, and then ground. This prepares it for mixing with ground coffee. As chicory costs one fifth as much as coffee, the more there is added to the latter, the greater the profit. Calling the mix ture constitutes a deception, of course, even though the more chicory used, the better some people like the drink. Indeed, chicory is some times used alone as a beverage. It has a bitter, aromatic flavor, and considerable more body and color than an equal amount of ground coffee.
If you are prejudiced against chicory, and sus pect adulteration of your coffee, nothing is easier than to detect the fraud. Pour a teaspoonful of the ground "coffee" into a tumbler of water. Stir it. In a short time the chicory will become softened, color the water, and sink to the bottom. The coffee will remain hard, and float on the sur face for a long time.
Since the public demands chicory, and we know it lacks the harmful properties of coffee, it is a crop no one needs be ashamed to raise. It is a staple product of farms in many agricultural sections of Europe, and recently is becoming established on a profitable basis in this country. A factory is always the centre of a chicory-growing com munity.
The farmer who grows chicory near a factory can get about $7 a ton for the crop. The average yield is ten tons to the acre. Allowing half of the gross returns for cost, which is enough, he has a profit of $30 per acre clear. This estimate, based upon averages carefully made from actual experi ments by farmers, should encourage timid folk to embark in the new enterprise, if opportunity comes their way.
Certain turnip-rooted varieties of chicory are grown as a table vegetable, to be baked or boiled like turnips. Another group of varieties de veloped from wild chicory have succulent stalks and tender, finely cut leaves, used for salads. One must like the tang of young dandelion leaves to enjoy chicory as a salad or a pot herb. Boiled and served with vinegar and other seasoning, it is delightful in early spring. The turnip-rooted varieties are used for producing winter salads. "Barbe de Capucin," and "Witloof," are two chicory salads one finds all winter in any good market in American cities. We have recently learned from our foreign neighbors to appreciate these two new things. The methods the gardeners use to get them are interesting, and also very simple.
Any plant which grows a turnip-like root ex pects to use the food stored up in this fleshy portion to send up a flower stalk next season, and mature a crop of seeds. See how the gardener thwarts the chicory's plan for perpetuating its race. He wants leaves, not seeds. So he begins in summer, when the tops are flourishing and the roots swelling. He cuts off the top, a little above the ground. The root hastens to send up a stock of small leaves to do the work of those that are gone. In autumn the largest leaves are again docked, the roots shortened, and the plants taken up, and set close together in boxes of rich soil. When frost comes, watering ceases, and the boxes are covered. As needed they are taken into a dark, warm cellar where each root is able in a short time to produce a head of crisp, blanched leaves. These are the barbe de Capucin salads, the particular delight of the French. Each root will produce two crops of leaves six inches long.
"Witloof," the favorite winter salad of the Belgians, is grown in a different way. The roots are buried in trenches filled with layers of manure. Each one produces a long head of leaves that con sist largely of blanched blades, with just a frill of webbing near the top. A second crop follows the first cutting. If the roots are brought out of the trenches, and kept in the dark, warm cellar, the second head resembles barbe de Capucin.
American gardeners have acquired the knack of growing these salads, and Americans are learn ing to like both of them.