Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/36

30 Another important product is a sort of sorghum cane, which is not sorghum at all except in appearance, there being no more juice in it than in the stalk of Indian corn. This is cultivated on land that cannot be utilized for rice, and is used for many purposes about the house and farm. The seed, which looks just like the sorghum, is used for feeding chickens, and by the very poor is eaten instead of rice. One would hardly expect to see sorghum stalks used for building fences, gates, etc., but such is the case here. Not only is it true that they are used for these purposes, but they are also much used in house-building. They take the place of plastering laths in many houses. When well tied together with straw rope, they are quite strong, and when covered over with the mud plaster they last for many years.

There are many sorts of garden vegetables which are used extensively in the Korean bill of fare. Of these, the turnip and the cabbage are the most generally used. These are in appearance somewhat like their kinsfolk of the West, but it would be difficult to trace the relation by the flavor. They are not boiled and eaten as Westerners eat such vegetables, but are eaten raw or pickled.

Some time during the last three hundred years the Irish potato found its way into the "Hermit Kingdom," and is now in favor in some parts of the country where white rice is scarce, though it is scorned by most people when in the presence of a bowl of white rice. The potato grows well in the mountains, and is much eaten by mountain people, who are often referred to as "po-