VEGETABLES — DESCRIPTION AND CULTURE. 165 



seeds will be ripe. One ounce of the seed will produce 

 about six hundred plants, and for three and sometimes 

 five years will vegetate freely if kept cool and dry. Put 

 away in paper bags for use. 



Properties and Use. — The artichoke is wholesome, yet 

 it contains but little nutriment, and is cultivated merely 

 to please the palate. The heads are sometimes pickled. 

 It is eaten by the French as a salad, with oil and vinegar, 

 salt and pepper ; the bottoms are often fried in paste like 

 the egg plant. The English gather them when they 

 spread their scales and the flower appears about to open ; 

 the whole head is boiled and the scales pulled off, one or 

 two at a time, dipped in butter and pepper, and the mealy 

 part stripped off with the teeth. The bottom, when the 

 leaves are disposed of, is eaten with the knife and fork. 

 The flowers have the properties of rennet in curdling milk. 



ARTICHOKE, JERUSALEM.— {Heliantlms tuberoms.) 



This is a hardy, perennial species of sun-flower, a native 

 of Brazil, introduced 

 into England in 1617, 

 and was much esteem- 

 ed as a garden vege- 

 table until the Irish 

 potato took its place. 

 The crops obtained in good soils are enormous. The salts 

 found in the ashes are mainly potash and lime, the former 

 very largely. 



Culture— -It flourishes best in a rich, light soil, with an 

 open exposure, but will thrive in almost any soil or loca- 

 tion. Plant in spring or fall, either small tubers or the 

 large ones, cut into sets of one or two eyes, four inches 



