No. 151.] 551 



1st. In favor of tlie substitution of the said artichoke for the Irish 

 potatoe, it may be asserted that the latter grows well wherever the 

 former does. And it may be, ere long, that Ireland itself will sub- 

 stitute, as sustenance for its millions, the Jerusalem artichoke for its 

 no longer reliable potato. The prodigious and certain yield will 

 compensate sufficiently for the comparatively less mealy and nutri- 

 tious quality than the potato. And improved modes of cooking may 

 soon obviate these comparative defects of the artichoke. I see it stat- 

 ed in a letter published in the Albany Cultivator, written by the distin- 

 guished agricultural tourist, Solon Robinson, that he much relished 

 a dish of sauce made of the Jerusalem artichokes cooked as turneps 

 or Irish potatoes, or boiled (often with meat) and mashed up, as com- 

 tnon in Tennessee and other Western States. 



A century ago, or so, the afterwards called Irish potato was cul- 

 tivated as a curiosity only in gardens, and not deemed a good eata- 

 ble vegetable. But in time it became the principal food of millions 

 of the human race. And I add, with sadness, that more subsequent- 

 ly its dire disease has disappointed millions of their daily food. 

 But: 



2dly. The Jerusalem artichoke is the most 'profitable of crops for 

 feeding swine. I venture to assert that on soils where fifty bushels 

 of corn can be made per acre, 1,000 of these artichokes can, which 

 will go fourfold, at least, further than said corn towards fattening or 

 store feeding swine. And I learn that, from repeated experiments 

 ascertained, one-fifth of the corn usual for fattening hogs suffices 

 with the help of said artichokes, and how little comparative trouble 

 with either fattening or store feeding hogs when turned into a lot of 

 artichokes to root for them at leisure, or perhaps all winter as well 

 as spring and fall in southern climes. But: 



3dly. Said artichoke is a great renovator of the soil where culti- 

 vated. The growth of the tops is so luxuriant (12 to 15 feet high 

 and very branching) that incorporated into the earth, its litter can- 

 not but enrich the soil more than the culture of the plants exhausts. 

 And suppose its tops soiled, or cut off measurably in the season of 

 growth, (and thus excellent summer food for milch cows, without injur- 

 ing the yield of the plant, as I have tried,) or cut before hard frosts for 

 catties' winter food, and still their eventual benefit for manure is real- 

 ized. Various are the ways of using the tops to improve land, but 

 the most direct improvement, I consider, is to press them down into 



