No. 133.] 339 



in number, but more beautiful. This plan will not do in clayey 

 soils, wlii-ch retain too much water. 



We saw at Senlis a field which has grown artichokes every 

 year for the last sixty years, on this plan, which is too little 

 known. 



Mr. Doublet's crops give him about five cents for each plant. 

 The plants stand about 40 inches apart, so giving per acre about 

 lOUU plants. The cabbage give him about 1 cent per head. 



At Rouen they plant the eyes of the artichokes at about two 

 feet apart, and between these, three rows of Grelot onions, or 

 salads, or radishes of the red sort ; and in every vacant spot they 

 set a Milan cabbage. They take up their artichokes in every fall 

 and put them in cellars. In the spri«g they take off the eyes, 

 or radons as they call them — and set them out as before. M. 

 Rouffia, of Paris, who is very zealous in agriculture, informs us 

 that in April or May tlie gardeners of Perpiguan have a method 

 by which they increase the size of the artichoke. It is very 

 simple. As soon as the heads are high enough on their stalks, 

 tliey put a band of rush around the leaves sufficiently close to 

 cause the leaves to be somewhat pressed over their heads — which 

 being thus sheltered from the sun, become much more tender and 

 larger. We know some amateurs at Paris who use this plan with 

 constant success. Some attempts to force tliem have succeeded. 



In the course of last winter Algeria sent to Paris about eighty 

 thousand artichokes- 

 Revue HorticolCj Paris, Sept., 1852. 



LONGEVITY OF SEEDS— NEW OBSERVATIONS. 



In our last note on this subject we invited cultivators who 

 have any knowledge of cases, to have the goodness to communi- 

 cate it to us, not merely to add new evidence to the support of 

 the opinions we have published, but to provoke contradiction and 

 bright on a subject so interesting both to vegetable physiology 

 and practical agriculture. One of the ablest agriculturists of the 

 west of France — M. Trochu — writes to us to call our attention to 

 facta observed by himself. He states that in 1816 he had sown 

 alternate beds of buckwheat and millet — some six or seven acres. 



