Vegetable of Hong Kong

Abstract

BOOKS on gardening are many and varied, but few volumes can have made a more dramatic entry to a localized horticultural community. Born during the incipient siege of Hong Kong and nourished during a forty-three months ‘sojourn’ in the Stanley Civilian Internment Camp, the book holds the attention of even a Western reader. It must have a far greater significance in the region for which it is particularly written. The volume describes about a hundred kinds of vegetables, giving cultural details, discussing varieties, recipes and food values. Chinese names and ideographs appear in the text, and most species are illustrated by very clear but artistic line drawings. Woven through these foundation strands, however, is a very modern exposition of horticultural science. This is, of course, particularly adapted to, Chinese conditions; but is a graceful blend of simple, age-old methods with modern scientific achievement. One learns how to compost organic matter with human urine and also the use of D.D.T. for pest control. ‘Canton mud’ settling from ponds where fish are fed on human excrement still provides a source of garden fertility, and yet weeds are,. now controlled by 2:4 dichloro-phenoxyacetic acid.

Vegetable Cultivation in Hong Kong

By G. A. C. Herklots. Pp. iv + 208. (Hong Kong: South China Morning Post, Ltd., 1947.) 12 dollars.