2l6 FORAGE CROPS. 



piece of land for at least a limited term of years. 

 When thus grown, replanting will not be necessary, 

 and the labor of cleaning out the artichokes for the 

 next crop in the rotation will be lessened in propor- 

 tion as the term of growing the successive crops of 

 artichokes is extended. 



Soil. — A soil that will grow artichokes in 

 excellent form should be deep, moist, friable, free 

 from stagnant water at all seasons of the year, and 

 well filled with vegetable matter. Black loams, 

 therefore, and muck soils will be found very suitable. 

 Good crops may be grown on sandy soils in moist 

 seasons, providing they have first been properly 

 enriched, but not when the opposite conditions pre- 

 vail. The sandy and alluvial soils of the Rocky 

 mountain region should grow excellent artichokes 

 when irrigated. Strong and even hard clays may 

 produce good crops, but artichokes should not be 

 grown on such lands as forage, since the swine can- 

 not dig them except at the expenditure of too much 

 labor, and if they are allowed to search for them in 

 clay land when it is wet, it would become so 

 impacted that for a time subsequent to such foraging 

 it would be impossible to cultivate it without 

 great labor. 



Preparing the Soil. — In preparing the land for 

 artichokes, much will depend upon the season of 

 the year when the sets are to be planted. When 

 planted late in the fall it is not absolutely necessary 

 to have the soil in tilth as fine as for spring planting. 

 When planted in the spring the tilth should be fine. 

 In the moist states of the east the aim should be to 

 have the soil lie loosely upon itself, but in the more 

 dry prairie soils the aim should be to have the land 



