AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
39 
rity, ‘hat the seed will ripen in all parts of 
the eountry. Its cultivation is gradually 
extending, and where its merits are once 
known, it displaces all other pole beans. 
There are two varieties of the Lima bean, 
the white and the green ; the latter is the 
largest, but the white produces the best 
crops, and is most extensively cultivated. 
It is known as the frost bean in many parts 
of the country, because the frost always sur¬ 
prises it in full bearing. 
Cultivation. 
The Lima bean requires a stronger and 
richer soil than the kidneys. It is enor¬ 
mously prolific, and there seems to be no 
limit to its bearing, but the strength of the 
soil and the length of the season. The hills 
should be planted in rows four feet apart, 
and three and a half feet apart in the row. 
The ground should be made very rich, if it 
is not already so, and the soil should be 
raised a few inches around the pole, and the 
seed be planted with the eye downward, 
about two inches deep. Six beans to a hill 
are enough, and if they all come up, they 
may be thinned out to three or four plants. 
The vkies are greatly inclined to run, but 
should be confined to poles six or eight feet 
long, and should be shortened-in when the 
pods are well set 
Uses. 
These beans are used invariably without 
the pod, and for that dish which is the glory 
of all Yankee housewives from Maine to 
Georgia, “Succotash,” there is nothing like 
them. No matter what corn you may have 
to make up the other half of the compound, 
it never has the perfect ambrosial fragrance 
until the Lima bean has diffused itself 
through the mass. It is an excellent vege¬ 
table boiled by itself, and served up as an in¬ 
dependent dish. In the winter, it is much 
used in this way, and no good housewife is 
perfect in the preparation of her winter 
stores until she has secured a large bag of 
these beans. They are an excellent substi¬ 
tute for potatoes, and at four dollars a bushel, 
far more economical. They always bear a 
high price in the market, both in summer 
and winter, which is good testimony to the 
high esteem in which they are held, and to 
the inadequate supply of the article. Not 
only are the perfectly ripened beans avail¬ 
able for winter stores, but the larger green 
ones, if taken from the pod before frost 
comes, and dried in a room with artificial 
heat. 
This bean, which hails from the city that 
gave it name, is really one of the best gifts 
Peru ever gave to the world. And yet it is 
not known in one farmer’s garden in ten. 
We earnestly exhort all our readers to plant 
this bean. A quart will plant four hundred 
hills. Put this on your memorandum when 
you visit the seed store. We shall give sea¬ 
sonable hints on its cultivation when the 
spring opens. 
What men want is not talent, but pur¬ 
pose; in other words, not the power to 
achieve, but the will to labor. 
Were it not for the tears that fill our eyes, 
what an ocean would flood our hearts ! _ 
THE JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE. 
This is a very different plant from the ar¬ 
tichoke of European gardens. Indeed it is no 
artichoke at all, but belongs to the sun flower 
family, (Helianthus tuberosus,) and probably 
derives its name from a slight resemblance 
of the taste of the tuber to the low¬ 
er part of the stalk of the true artichoke. 
There are two varieties of the European 
article, (Cynara Scolymus, and Cynara Hor- 
tensis.) Cobbett, who wrote as well upon 
horticulture as upon politics, and much more 
amiably, says “ they resemble the this¬ 
tle of the big-blossomed kind. The parts 
that are eaten are the lower end of the thick 
leaves that envelope the seed, and the bottom 
out of which those leaves grow. The 
French, who make salads of almost every 
garden vegetable, and of not a few of the 
plants of the field, eat the artichoke in sal¬ 
ad.” We think they found rather a hard 
subject, even for their cookery in this arti¬ 
cle. It is sometimes found in the New York 
market, but is only sought for by those who 
have been accustomed to it in other lands. 
It is said to be fastidious in its habits, and 
not easily raised in our latitude. As we 
have a poor opinion of the vegetable for 
American palates, we give no direction for 
its cultivation, and pass to its name-sake, 
which is the only thing suggested by the 
name artichoke, to most of our readers. It 
is quite widely disseminated in all t ^.isof 
the country, is very hardy, survives our 
winters, and holds its own in any corner of 
a garden where it is planted, with as much 
tenacity as pig weed or purslain. Its great 
productiveness, its nutritious quality and 
hardiness, recommend it as a good crop to 
cultivate for stock. 
THE JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, 
Or Helianthus Tuberosus, as its name 
implies, has some resemblance to the sun 
flower. Its stalk, though much more slen¬ 
der and delicate, has the same general ap¬ 
pearance,—is short and woody, and in good 
soil attains a height of six or more feet. 
CULTIVATION. 
This is as simple as that ol the potato. 
They may be raised by planting the tubers 
whole, as soon as the ground opens in the 
spring, or by sets and cuttings. The rows 
should be three feet apart, and the plants 
eighteen inches apart in the row. If closer, 
the ground will be too much shaded by the 
stalks, which are tall, and well furnished 
with leaves. They should have the full 
benefit of the sun, and the earlier they are 
planted the better. The treatment after 
planting is like that of the potato. The 
weeds are to be kept down by frequent cul¬ 
tivation or hoeing, and early in August the 
stalks are to be cut off near the middle. 
This will give the ground more sun, and in¬ 
crease the size of the tubers. The tubers 
should be dug with care, and every one re¬ 
moved from the ground, as the smallest of 
them will be sure to survive the winter, and 
vegetate again the next spring. 
USES. 
Bossingault says that this plant draws its 
supplies of nitrogen almost enUely from 
the air. However this may be, it is a well 
known fact, that it exhausts the soil less 
than most other crops. It flourishes well 
on comparatively poor soils, has a very large 
burden of stalks and leaves, and for this rea¬ 
son makes a good plant to turn in, as a green 
crop, if the plowing be done early, before 
the tubers are formed. 
In Europe, the stem is used for cordage and 
cloth. When macerated the fibres are easi¬ 
ly separated, like those of hemp. It will 
grow and make a large crop on soils where 
hemp will not pay. 
But the chief value of the plant, at least in 
this country, must be as an article of food. 
In the early spring, when fresh dug from the 
earth, or taken from the winter store house, 
it forms an excellent side dish, sliced up in 
vinegar like cucumbers. They are also 
cooked like a potato, but will not prove a 
formidable rival to that vegetable. They 
should be scraped and put in boiling water, 
with a little salt. The large tubers need 
boiling two hours. They should be served 
up with melted butter. 
But among us, where the best vegetables 
are so easily cultivated, we do not think it 
will ever attain a conspicuous place as an ar¬ 
ticle for human food. 
For stock it has many excellent qualities, 
and if it does not drive any of its rival roots 
out of the field, it may hold an honored 
place among them. It is a very important 
point that it does not demand a rich soil to 
make a paying crop. It will yield, with 
similar soil and culture, a good deal more 
than the potato, and in poor soils at least 
double, while the farmer runs no risk of the 
rot. Hogs are very fond of them, and in 
the fall of the year would harvest the crop 
for themselves, saving quite an item of ex¬ 
pense to the cultivator. 
Allen states, in his American Agriculture, 
that “ the product, under favorable treat¬ 
ment, is enormous, sometimes overrunning 
two thousand bushels to the acre. It is pe¬ 
culiarly fitted for spring feed, as the roots 
lie unimpaired by the vicissitudes of the 
weather, and may be taken out in perfection 
after most other roots are gone.” The Je¬ 
rusalem Artichoke, we think, deserves a 
much higher place in our husbandry than it 
now possesses. 
Gum Arabic. —In Morocco, about the mid¬ 
dle of November, that is, after the rainy sea¬ 
son, which begins in July, a gummy juice 
exudes spontaneously from the trunk and 
principal branches of the acacia tree. In about 
fifteen days it thickens in furrows, down 
which it runs, either in a circular or worm 
shape, or commonly assuming the form of 
oval and round tears, about the size of a 
pigeon’s egg, of different colors, as they be¬ 
long to the white or red gum tree. About 
the middle of December the Moors encamp 
on the borders of the forest, and the harvest 
lasts six weeks. The gum is packed in very- 
large sacks of leather, and brought on the 
backs of bullocks and camels to certain ports 
where it is sold to French and English mer¬ 
chants. The gum is highly nutritious. Dur¬ 
ing the whole time of the harvest, of the 
journey, and of the fair,’ the Moors of the 
desert live almost entirely upon it; and ex¬ 
perience has proved that six ounces of gum 
are sufficient for the support of a man twen¬ 
ty-four hours. 
