i9i 2-1 Jerusalem Artichokes as a Food for Stock. 929 



always take to them readily, but appear soon to relish them. 

 Wolff says* that they are only occasionally employed as a farm 

 food, while Kellner writes to the same effect. Sheep eagerly 

 eat the leaves and tender parts of the luxuriant upper-growth. 



Composition of Artichokes. — According to Wolff, the tubers 

 contain more water and more albuminoids than potatoes, 

 while they appear to contain as large a proportion of amides 

 to albuminoids as turnips, and some determinations of amide 

 nitrogen at Hohenheim gave results amounting to more than 

 40 per cent, of that of the albuminoids. 



Kellner says that "the tubers of artichokes are closely 

 allied to potatoes in composition, but instead of starch they 

 contain other carbohydrates — laevulin and inulin — and slightly 

 more water." 



Potts gives the following average composition of artichokes 

 compared with potatoes : — 





Water. 



Ash. 



Protein. 



Carbohydrates. 



Fat. 



Nutritive 

 Ratio. 



Artichokes ... 

 Potatoes 



79"5 

 789 



I *o 

 I O 



2'I 



167 

 I7'9 



0*2 

 OI 



1 • 7 



1 : 8-6 



Behrend's experiments f showed that artichokes contained 

 about as much dry matter (16*07 to 2 5 P er cent.) as sugar 

 beets, and rather more water than the best types of potatoes. 

 Raw protein varied between 3*31 and 1073 per cent, of the 

 dry matter- — rather more than in sugar beets, but below that 

 in potatoes; the proportion of fibre approximated to that in 

 potatoes, while, as in other tubers and roots, the fat content 

 was very small. The proportion of the dry matter soluble in 

 water was very high — 80 to 90 per cent. — and from this 

 Behrend argued a high digestibility of the tubers, and thought 

 that this might account for the good results obtained in the 

 feeding experiments conducted with artichokes. Tubers 

 stored for three or four months in a cool cellar, from spring 

 to August, were found to keep well, though they dried some- 

 what, and were consequently richer in dry matter. 



Cultivation of Artichokes. — Artichokes grow to best advan- 



* E. V. Wolff, Farm Foods, translated by H. H. Cousins, 1895, p. 210. 

 f Zeitschrift filr Spiritusindustrie, 9 June, 1904, as abstracted in Bulletin 

 Mensuel, 1904, II., p. 922; also Journal filr Landwir I schaft, 1904, p. 127. 



3 s 



