LUTHER BURBANK 



would give us a new garden vegetable of a type 

 at present rather sparsely represented. 



There is also an Old World thistle, known to 

 the botanist as Cardans marianus, that has found 

 its way to this country, growing wild by the 

 roadsides in California, that is sometimes used for 

 cooking. 



The flower buds, roots, leaves, and leaf-stalks 

 of this plant are edible — a very unusual exhibition 

 of versatility scarcely duplicated by any vegetable 

 under cultivation. As this European thistle is not 

 distantly related to the French artichoke, and as 

 it is edible even in its wild state, it would seem to 

 furnish good material for the experiments of the 

 plant developer. I have observed that cultivation 

 and freedom from crowding increase the size and 

 succulent qualities of this plant enormously. In 

 other words it responds to cultivation readily. I 

 have thought many times of improving it, and even 

 yet may undertake to do so. 



I have done a good deal of work with a related 

 naturalized weed from Europe, of the genus 

 Sonches, known as the sow thistle. 



The genus is closely related to the lettuce, and 

 not distantly related to the artichoke. The two 

 species with which 1 have worked are succulent 

 weeds that vary greatly as to their degree of 

 smoothness of leaves and stem. One of them is 



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