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Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 February 1943, Page 5

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LUCERNE TIPS. EXCELLENT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. (By the Health Department.) Always regarded as first-class fodder for stock, the familiar lucerne plant is now known to possess qualities that lift it above the status of a stock food. It is, in fact excellent for human consumption—in a refined form, of course. Recently it was reported that the Nutrition Committee of the Federal Health Department in Australia was considering the use of material evolved from’lucerne for the civil population when fresh vegetables and fruits were in short supply. The New Zealand Nutrition Committee has checked up on this, and finds that when a quarter of a pound of the young tips of lucerne is put into a half-pint of boiling water and boiled for 15 minutes, then strained (pressing out as much as possible of the water), the resulting liquor contains as much Vitamin C as orange juice. Coming at/a time when the regular sources of Vitamin C—the very important anti-scorbutic vitamin —are in deplorably short supply, this information is' of considerable value. Country dwellers will have easier access to the lucerne paddock than city folk, but there is no harm in the latter sowing a small patch of lucerne in a well-drained part of their garden. It grows easily, requires little space, and does not require resowing year by year.