Problem in Petioles

Fruit or vegetable? For a Buffalo court last week that was the barb in rhubarb. U.S. canners who import rhubarb from Canada want to call it a fruit, subject to a 35% duty. The U.S. Customs Department wants to go on calling it a vegetable, subject to a 50% duty.

The court gave customs and canners 60 days to do their classifying, but in Canada a Government expert tried to be helpful. "A vegetable," explained Dr. F. L. Drayton, Dominion botanist, gravely, "is simply a piece of vegetation. A fruit, on the other hand, [results] from fertilization of the flower. Botanically speaking, tomatoes and eggplants are fruits. So are pumpkins and peanuts."

But rhubarb? The doctor pondered. "The part eaten is the stalk. Hence it is really a petiole, like a Swiss chard." Suddenly the doctor smiled. "At the Dominion Experimental Farm we'd get round it by calling it a field crop."

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