AMERICAN GARDENER, 1,09 



eater, one or two at a time, and dipped in butter, 

 with a little pepper and salt, the mealy part is 

 stripped off by the teeth, and the rest of the leaf 

 put aside, as we do the stem of asparagus. The 

 bottom^ when all the leaves are thus disposed of, 

 is eaten with knife and fork. The french, who 

 make salads of almost every garden vegetable, 

 and of not a few of the plants of the field, eat the 

 artichoke in salad. They gather the heads, when 

 not much bigger round than a dollar, and eat the 

 lower ends of the leaves above mentioned raw, 

 dipping them first in oil, vinegar, salt and pepper; 

 and, this way, they are very good. Artichokes 

 are firopagated from seed, or, from offsets. If 

 by the former, sow the seed in rows a foot a part, 

 as soon as the frost is out of the ground. Thin 

 the plants to a foot apart in the row ; and, in the 

 fall of the year, put out the plants in clumps of 

 four, in rows, three feet apart, and the rows six 

 feet asunder. They will produce their fruit the 

 next year. When winter approaches, earth the 

 roots well up ; and, before the frost sets in, cover 

 all well over with litter from the yard or stable. 

 Qpen at the breaking up of the frost ; dig all the 

 ground well between the rows; level the earth 

 down from the plants. You will find many young 

 ones, or offsets, growing out from the sides. 

 Pull these off, and, if you want a new plantation, 

 put them out, as you did the original plants. They 

 will bear, though later than the old ones, that 

 same year. As to sorts of this plant, there are 

 two, but they contain no difference of any conse- 

 quence: one has its head, or fruit pod, round % 

 and the other, rather conical. As to the quantity 

 for a family, one row across one of the plats will 

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