108 AMERICAN GARDENER- 



CHAPTER IV. 



Vegetables and Herbs. 



191. The word, VEGETABLES, is not, as was 

 observed in Paragraph 5, quite properly used 

 here. This Chapter treats of the things culti- 

 vated in the garden to be eaten at our tables as 

 food ; and, they are Vegetables ; but, a tree is 

 also a vegetable ; and such is a herb or a flower. 

 Therefore, as a distinct appellation, the word, 

 vegetables^ is n^t strictly proper. But it is the 

 word we use to d-stmguish this class of the pro- 

 ducts of the earth from others ; and therefore, 

 I use it upon this occasion. HERBS are usually 

 placed as a class separate from Vegetables; but, 

 while some of them ar^'fnerely medicinal, like 

 Penny royal, others are used, not only in medicine 

 and in soups, but also eaten in salads. There- 

 fore, it appeared to be best to bring into this 

 one alphabetical list, all plants usually grown in 

 a garden, except such as come under the heads 

 of Fruits and Flowers. 



192. ARTICHOKE. A plant little culti- 

 vated in America, but very well worthy of cul- 

 tivation. In its look it very much resembles a 

 thistle of the big-blossomed kind. It sends up a 

 seed stal*:, and it blows, exactly like the thistle 

 that we see in the Arms of Scotland. It is, in- 

 deed, a thistle upon a gigantic scale. The parts 

 that are eaten are, the lower end of the thick 

 leaves that envelope the seed, and the bottom out 

 which those leaves immediately grow. The whole 

 of the head, before the bloom begins to appear, 

 is boiled, the pod leaves are pulled off by the 



