Abstract

Grow more tood" is the order of the day and the present food position is such that everybody who can is asked to contribute his share, inclusive of the production of vegetables. Vegetables form an important group of food. They are essential protective foods, whose consumption in greater quantities is recommended, not only for their food value, but also for the important vitamins and mineral matter they contain and which are lacking particularly in the common South Indian staple diet. The use of more vegetables at present has a meaning and a significance: it tends to reduce the consumption of rice and thus make the existing supplies do a greater duty. Further, vegetables could be suitably grown in the backyards of houses with little effort or expense, to meet one's own requirements and possibly a little to spare for neighbours and the needy. Vegetables that combine quantity and quality of produce with an economic return are to be preferred, whether they are indigenous or exotic types, which in popular parlance are referred to as 'English vegetables'. Judged by that standard and from the experience of the cultivation and marketing of exotic veget- ables, it could be stated that the exotic vegetables easily score over the indigenous types. Some of the aspects of the production of exotic vegetables that would interest the would-be cultivator are included in this short note.

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