ARTICHOKE 



ARTOCARPUS 



401 



390. Edible heads of artichoke. ( X H) 



are the edible parts. They are sometimes eaten raw, 

 but are usually boiled and served with drawn butter or 

 sauce. The leaves are sometimes blanched after the 

 manner of sea-kale and cardoon, and are cooked as a 

 pot-herb. 



In the southern states and California, the artichoke is 

 grown without difficulty. In California, particularly, 

 it thrives as a field crop. In northern gardens, even 

 professional and skilled gardeners have usually given 



it up after a few 

 trials. It is found 

 in a few gardens 

 on Long Island, 

 in Massachusetts, 

 and perhaps a few 

 other places, and 

 is there grown 

 with fair success, 

 provided that the 

 crown is protected 

 in winter in such 

 a way that snow 

 or heavy mulch is 

 not allowed to 

 choke the plant. 

 This seems to be 

 the chief danger. 

 Instead of covering with manure or litter, place a cap or 

 miniature tent over the crown to give it air and freedom 

 of breathing. The flower-heads are now regularly and 

 commonly found on sale at the green grocers' in our 

 larger eastern cities, and the supply comes mostly from 

 California. The large seeds may need special treat- 

 ment to make them germinate promptly. The better 

 way, undoubtedly, for the home gardener who may 

 wish to try a few plants, is to secure sucker plants 

 from one of the big seedsmen or professional plant- 

 growers. Set them in fairly good warm soil, 3 feet 

 each way, or 4 by 2, and give clean cultivation. Pro- 

 tect the crowns during winter as suggested, and in 

 following spring thin to about three shoots. Edible 

 heads may be expected in July. They are gathered for 

 use before the flower-heads open. It is better to cut the 

 old stalk down to the ground after the head is removed, 

 for the root is not then weakened and new shoots will 

 spring up. There are a number of varieties. Large 

 Green Paris being the one mostly mentioned in Cali- 

 fornia. In parts of Europe the artichoke is growm with 

 special skill, but it has never been a prominent vege- 

 table in American gardens. T. Gbeiner. 



ARTICHOKE, JERUSALEM {Helidnthus tuberosus, 

 Linn.). Compositse. The Jerusalem artichoke is the 

 subterranean stem tuber of a native sunflower. Fig. 

 391. The plant is coarse and upright, and persists as a 

 weed when once introduced. It does not need excess- 

 ively rich soil, nor high culture, succeeding on any 

 warm well-drained land without attention. It is 

 planted much after the manner of potatoes, and it will 

 grow and produce its many smaUish, white, edible tubers. 



In late fall, the plants 



_-.»,- ^^^^k ^^y ^^ pulled up, e.\- 



a&P" '''^^§R?^4^Bkv posing to view the 



^Ji J ^ . i^^^3t'gft tubers that are clus- 



<^ '''"'■VJEF tered around the roots 



'"*---^ . VWT ^ ^»5f near the main stalks so 



that they can be easily 

 gathered with the help 

 of a hoe or pot ato hook, 

 if wanted for use as a 

 culinarj- vegetable; or, if grown for hog-feed, the hogs 

 may be turned right into the field and allowed to dig 

 their ow^n. All farm stock seems to like the artichoke 

 tubers. If shredded or ground and mixed with meals, 

 they make a good w-inter ration, as a variety, for pf)ultry. 

 More prohfic than common potatoes, and far more 



26 



-*ffc 



h^ 



391. 



Tuber of Jerasalem artichoke. 



(X'i) 



easily grown, the artichoke is one of the crops that may 

 be considered for cultivation as a succulent vegetable to 

 feed to cattle, swine, and other farm animals during 

 winter. Raw or boiled and served cold with oil and vine- 

 gar, this tuber also makes a very palatable winter or 

 spring salad, and for this purpose it finds a limited sale 

 in our markets. The chief commercial demand for it 

 is for seed purposes. Frost has no injurious effect on 

 the tuber in the ground, and the easiest way to winter 

 it, therefore, is by leaving the plants alone until spring 

 and then digging the tubers. If already harvested, they 

 may be pitted like potatoes, beets, or other roots, and 

 wiU require very httle covering. Mammoth White 

 French is said by some propagators to be an improved 

 strain of the Jerusalem artichoke. If there is danger of 

 the plant spreading and becoming a weed, hogs, when 

 given a chance- at it, will soon clear the land of 

 the tubers. It was cultivated by the Indians. See 

 Helianthus. T. Ghbiner. 



ARTOCARPUS (artos, bread, and carpos, fruit). 

 Mmaces:. Bread-Fruit. Milky-juiced tropical trees, 

 some of them yielding ecUble fruits, ornamental in 

 foliage. 



Leaves alternate, large, thick, entire or pinnate: 

 dioecious; staminate fis. on long spikes, the sepals and 



392. Bread-Fruit. — Artocarpus incisa, showing a 

 fruit of edible size. ( X J s) 



stamens 2; pistillate fls. in globular heads, with simple 

 1-ovuled ovarj- and bifid stigma: fr. a large fleshy mass 

 or sj-ncarp, formed of the aggregated fls. — A geiius of 

 40 species containing many tropical fr. plants, originally 

 from the E. Indies, sometimes cult, with difficulty in 

 northern botanic gardens for their great economic 

 interest, and throughout the world in the tropics. They 

 need a hot, moist atmosphere, much water, and per- 

 fect drainage. Prop, slowly by cuttings of young 

 lateral growth. Bread-fruit seeds are boiled and eaten. 

 incisa, Linn.f. (A.commvuis, Forst.?). Bread-Frdit. 

 Fig. 392. Tree, 30-40 ft., with a viscid, milky juice: 

 branches fragile: Ivs. 1-3 ft. long, leathery, ovate, 

 cuneate and entire at base, upper part 3-9-lobed: male 

 fls. in a dense club-shaped yellow catkin, 10-16 in. long; 

 female fls. in a subglobuiar echinate head, having a 

 spongy receptacle: fr. 4-6 in. diam., typically muri- 

 cated, but in the best cult, varieties reticulated only, 

 and often seedless. Gt. 39, p. 273. Gng. .5:233, and 



