JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE. 35 



turn, will increase so rapidly, as to encumber the ground, 

 and become troublesome. In localities where the crop has 

 once been cultivated, though no plants be allowed to grow 

 for the production of fresh tubers, yet the young shoots will 

 continue to make their appearance from time to time for 

 many years. 



Use. The plant is cultivated for its tubers, which are 

 pickled, like the cucumber, and sometimes eaten in their 

 crude state, sliced as a salad. When cooked they have 

 somewhat the flavor of the true artichoke. 



Mclntosh says that the tubers may be used in every way as 

 the potato, and are suited to persons in delicate health, when 

 debarred from the use of most other vegetables. 



Varieties. For a long period there was but a single va- 

 riety cultivated, or even known. Recent experiments in the 

 use of seeds as a means of propagation have developed new 

 kinds, varying greatly in their size, form, and color, pos- 

 sessing little of the watery and insipid character of the here- 

 tofore grown Jerusalem Artichoke, and nearly or quite equal- 

 ling the potato in flavor and excellence. 



Tubers large, and often irregular in form ; skin Common 



"^7" bite, 

 and flesh white ; quality watery, and somewhat 



insipid. It is unfit for boiling, but is sometimes served baked 

 or roasted. It makes a very crisp and well-flavored pickle. 



A French variety, produced from seed. Purple- 

 skinned. 

 Tubers purplish rose-color ; flesh dryer when 



cooked, and finer flavored, than that of the foregoing. 



Like the purple-skinned, produced from seed. Bed-skinned. 

 Skin red. Between this and the last named there are 

 various intermediate sorts, differing in shades of color, as 

 well as in size, form, and quality. 



