Pages 120-124 of John Damper Parks' journal and notes: 'Observations on the Chinese mode and season growing their vegetables as esculents' by John Damper Parks
Information
Title - Pages 120-124 of John Damper Parks' journal and notes: 'Observations on the Chinese mode and season growing their vegetables as esculents' by John Damper Parks
Record type - Archive
Original Reference - RHS/Col/4/1/14
Date - c.1823-1824
Scope & content - Pages 120-124: 'Observations on the Chinese mode and season growing their vegetables as esculents'. Undated
This item is bound in the volume comprising journal and notes of John Damper Parks
Plants such as peas, cabbages and cauliflowers are sown at the beginning of September; arriving at Macao [Macau] on 19 Aug, the main green vegetable 'principle thing as a green' was Convolvulus reptans [Merremia hirta], 'an excellent substitute for spinach', grown in the ground after rice, but not kept as wet as rice; the ground in Macao is naturally moist but very sandy; Mr Beale's [Thomas Beale, naturalist, merchant and opium speculator in Macao] gardener used 'ringing' plants as a mode of propagation, 'and it had had wonderful good effect, as almost everything he had done had succeeded well'; on Parks' arrival on 20 Aug, he was taking 'a great many things off their parent plants with most excellent roots', the wet summer helping this practice; the gardener had done this to many of the fruit trees and shrubs, including Magnolia grandiflora and orange trees, although loquats did not do well; Beale said that the gardener was 'one of their first rate Chinese gardeners, for he was the first man he ever found to give an account for what reason he did things he put in practice, as others generally said they did so because it was the general method', and that usually 'the only way to please a Chinese gardener was to let him do as he pleased, and particular in torturing trees, as he called it, by their method of propagation, and bending them about to make them become fruitful', a method in which they took much pride; the Chinese gardeners were particularly proud of their chrysanthemums, 'and thought there was none in the world to equal themselves' in their management; the seed vessels of Hibiscus esculentus [Abelmoschus esculentus] are used as a vegetable by Chinese and Europeans living in China, in place of grains: 'the only fault I found in it as a vegetable in this way, there was a kind of glutinousness about it, that was not quite pleasant at the time of eating it'; August is a bad time for vegetables, as they are mainly grown in the winter; the Chinese way of managing chrysanthemums, according to a description by Beale, is to cut them down as soon as they are out of flower, strip off new shoots and put 'stiff earth' around their ends, then 'bed them out for a time', potting them when they are sufficiently strong, pinching off the heads until late June to make them stock out at the bottom with shoots, and placing a small bamboo for the growing shoots for blooms ('generally a good many from one shoot'); at the time of potting, they put rice chaff around the roots to ward off insects and mix some bone ash and, during the summer, dried hog's dung with the mould; their 'favourite manure' is human excrement: 'after the human manure, as alluded to, the mould gets full of insects, and many plants die'; he will describe, according to Mr Sabine's [Joseph Sabine, secretary of the Horticultural Society] 'particular wish' the Chinese manner of growing esculent vegetables; sweet potato is held in high esteem in China, and 'indeed [by] the Indians in general'; cuttings of sweet potato (Convolvulus batatas) are planted in rice fields made into ridges in August and September, 18 inches apart in rows, with three feet between the rows; Amaranthus bicolor [Amaranthus tricolor] is used as a vegetable; during Parks' walks 'through the ground where most of the vegetables are grown for market at Macao [Macau]' in August, people were busy planting 'the slips off their old cabbage stalks' in a nursery for young plants, shading them until they rooted, covering the ground where seeds are sown, including Amaranthus and cabbage: 'often I observe they do not remove the covering at all, but let the seeds come up through it'; the Brassica sown from seed is 'an inferior kind of kale', the 'better kind of cabbage' being propagated from slips; the 'English kinds of potatoes' are 'now about 6 inches high (23 Sep)', but very slender and not promising for a good crop; the roots of a water lily are used as a vegetable, frequently sold in the markets, but Parks did not see any growing: 'Mr Reeves [John Reeves, East India Company tea inspector and naturalist in China] said they brought them from farther in the country than where I was'; Beale sowed his garden esculents on 22 Sep; in terms of propagation, the Chinese 'are sadly behind the Europeans', grafting by approach [inarching] by turning the stocks out of their pots and tying a large leaf around the roots: 'by the time they have untied, the stocks are half dead', then making an incision into the pith of the wood and 'clumsily' tying them together; 'they have no idea of budding at all, as I find', or grafting 'only at one time of the year', Beale's gardener being certain that a Camellia 'inacted' by Parks in September would not grow, especially as it was not cut to the pith: 'he was astonished at three weeks' end to see it uniting'; Beale and Parks 'with great difficulty' convinced the gardener to change the compost for all of the camellias and oranges; there is good loam on the Lapa hills, but the local gardeners prefer 'very stiff, retentive earth'; 'they are the most slovenly fellows and the least idea of neatness I ever saw. In England they would be considered no gardeners at all, or at all fit for to be employed in such a pursuit'; they cannot use a knife, 'which a gardener above all others ought to do', holding it awkwardly as if they had never held a knife previously: 'indeed they rarely have, as they never use one at their meals, merely using two sticks for eating their victuals, which they are very handy with'; when people talk about the Chinese raising young chrysanthemums each year, they are not aware that the plants can be propagated in March, whereas in England it cannot be done until May; if the English stopped their plants like the Chinese, and propagated them in the usual way of parting the roots in the spring and potting them into large pots 'I think that is all that is necessary'; the plants cannot be grown in England in the same way as they are in China, as 'artificial means' cannot compensate for the differences in climate, since the plants have to be taken in from the cold before they have properly opened or bloomed, and without a longer season they will never grow as well as in China; there is 'a kind of inferior turnip', resembling a large radish, hard when boiled; there is another kind, which is smaller and not as round; Sinapis brassicatus [?Brassica juncea] is used as an esculent vegetable, 'blanched about 2 thirds of the way up'; there are plenty of 'inferior cucumbers, of a thick, short, seedy kind and not good in taste'; Parks has seen no melons; there is plenty of a 'great coarse gourd'
Extent - 5 pages
Repository - Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library
Copyright - Royal Horticultural Society
Credit Line - RHS Lindley Collections
Usage terms - Non-commercial use with attribution permitted (CC BY-NC 4.0)