ARTIFICIAL GRASSES. 



ASH. 



in the spring ; for which reason they are often 

 allotted some remote corner of the garden; but 

 their culinary merits certainly demand a more 

 favourable treatment. ( C. W. Johnson's Kitchen 

 Garden'). 



The Jerusalem Artichoke thrives well in the 

 United States on soft, moist, and it is said even 

 on peaty soils. This root is abundant in the 

 English and French markets, where it sells for 

 a little more than the price of Irish potatoes. 

 The fibres of the stems may be separated by 

 maceration similar to hemp, so as to be capa- 

 ble of being manufactured into cordage or 

 cloth, as is practised in some parts of Europe, 

 where the plant is an object of field culture, 

 especially on the poor and sandy soils. The 

 artichoke will yield, with similar culture, 30 

 per cent, more than the potato, and if the land 

 be poor, they will yield at least double the 

 quantity per acre that can be raised with the 

 potato, and the expense of culture is no more. 

 They are particularly adapted to tke climate 

 and soil of the Middle and Southern States, 

 and being hardy, can be left during the fall 

 and winter in the ground to be rooted up by 

 hogs, great numbers of which may be thus 

 fattened at little expense. Or they may be 

 taken up and given to all kind of stock, for 

 which purpose it is more requisite to steam 

 them than potatoes. One of the chief objec- 

 tions urged against their culture is, that not 

 being killed in winter by the frost, they grow 

 among the crops which succeed them. But 

 this is a comparatively trifling objection. The 

 Jerusalem artichoke certainly deserves more 

 attention from farmers than it now gets in the 

 United States. 



ARTIFICIAL GRASSES. See GRASSES. 



ARUM. Common Cuckow-pint, or Wake- 

 Robin (Arum maculatum'). See WAKE-ROBIN 

 and INDIAN TURNIP. 



ARUNDO. A genus of grasses in which a 

 number of useful species was once compre- 

 hended; but in consequence of the altered 

 views of botanists regarding the limits of ge- 

 nera, it is now confined to the Arundo donax, 

 and the species most nearly agreeing with it. 

 These are grasses of considerable size, some- 

 times acquiring a woody stem, and found only 

 in the warm parts of the worM. The Arundo 

 is closely allied to the genus Saccharum, the last 

 of which includes the sugar-cane. (Penny 

 Cyclop.") 



Arundo arenaria. Sea-reed, marram, starr, 

 or bent. (See Plate 7, o.) The nutritive mat- 

 ter of this grass affords a large portion of sac- 

 charine matter when compared with the pro- 

 duce in this respect of other grasses. The 

 Elymus arenarius, however, affords about one- 

 third more sugar than the present plant. The 

 quantity of nutritive matter afforded by the 

 Elymus arenarius is superior to that afforded 

 by the Arundo arenaria, in the proportion of 4 

 to 5. From experiments as to the produce, it 

 would appear that the A. arenaria is unworthy 



f" cultivation as food for cattle, out of the in- 

 icnce of the salt spray. But from the habit 

 the plant in its natural place of growth, it is 

 of great utility, particularly when combined 

 with the Elymus arenarius, in binding the loose j 

 sands of the sea-shore, and thereby raising a , 

 114 



[ natural barrier, the most lasting against the 

 encrpachments of the ocean upon the land. So 

 far back as the reign of William III., the im- 

 portant value of the Elymus arenarius and 

 Arundo arenaria was so well appreciated as to 

 induce the Scottish parliament of that period 

 to pass an act for their preservation on the 

 sea-coasts of Scotland. And these provisions 

 were, by the British parliament in the reign of 

 George I., followed up by other enactments, ex- 

 tending the operation of the Scottish law to the 

 coasts of England, and in passing further penal- 

 ties for its inviolability, so that it was rendered 

 penal, not only for any individual, not even ex- 

 cepting the lord of the manor, to cut the bent, but 

 for any one to be in possession of any within 

 eight miles of the coast. This plant is likewise 

 applied to many economical purposes ; hats, 

 ropes, mats, &c., being manufactured from it. 

 (Sinclair's Hort. Gram. Wob.) 



ASCARIDES. See WORMS, INTESTINAL 



ASH (Frdxinus excelsior). This tree was 

 called by the Greeks p^ix., and by some pat*. 

 The Latins, it is thought, named it Fraxinus, 

 yuia facile frangitur, to express the fragile na- 

 ture of the wood, as the boughs of it are easily 

 broken. We are thought to have given the 

 name of ash to this tree, because the bark of 

 the trunk and branches is of the colour of 

 wood-ashes, whilst some learned etymologists 

 affirm that the word is derived from the Saxon 

 r e - Virgil tells us that the spears of the Ama- 

 zons were of this wood, and Homer celebrates 

 the mighty ashen spear of Achilles. Many of 

 the ancient writers highly extolled the ash. It 

 has been asserted that serpents have such an 

 antipathy to the ash, that they will not ap- 

 proach even within its morning or evening 

 shadows ; and Pliny tells us (he says upon ex- 

 perience), that if a fire and serpent be sur- 

 rounded by ash boughs, the serpent will sooner 

 run into the fire than into the boughs. There 

 are many other superstitious notions attached 

 to the ash, which it would be foreign to our 

 purpose to notice. 



There are several varieties of the ash, 

 among which are, 1. The weeping, which forms 

 a beautiful arbour when grafted upon a lofty 

 stem- it is said to have originated incidentally 

 in a field at Garntingay, Cambridgeshire: 2. 

 The entire leaved : 3. The curl-leaved, which 

 has a dark aspect : and, 4. The wasted. 



Ash plantations have lately been formed in 

 many parts of the kingdom to a very consider- 

 able extent. The Romans used the ash-leaves 

 for fodder, which were esteemed better for cat- 

 tle than those of any other tree, the elm ex- 

 cepted: and they were also used for the same 

 purpose, before agriculture was so well un- 

 derstood, and our fields clothed with artificial 

 grasses. In Queen Elizabeth's time, the in- 

 habitants of Colton and Hawkshead Fells re- 

 monstrated against the number of forges in 

 the country, because they consumed all the 

 loppings and croppings which were the sole 

 winter food for their cattle. In y?e north of 

 Lancashire the farmers still lop the tops of the 

 ash to feed their cattle in autumn, when the 

 grass is on the decline ; the cattle peeling off 

 the bark as food. The Rev. Mr. Gilpin tells 

 us, that in forests the keepers make the deer 



