Keeping one cow / Being the experience of a number of practical writers, in a clear and condensed form, upon the management of a single milch cow

by Various

CONCLUSIONS ABOUT ARTICHOKES.

I have now given my instructions for keeping a cow, and it is evident from what I have written, that the Jerusalem Artichoke is my main dependence for her support. The other points that I have touched upon, are of minor importance, when compared with the value that I have attached to this plant. My own experience with the plant satisfies me that I have not overstated its merits. On rich land a single stalk will produce from a peck to half a bushel of the tubers. Last year was an exceptionably unfavorable one in this locality, on account of drouth in summer and fall; and yet the artichokes that I planted between the trees in my peach orchard yielded abundantly. I have fattened cattle on them without any additional food excepting a little hay, until they were fit for the butcher; and my horses thrive on them when fed in connection with hay, doing full work without grain. A brother of mine planted artichokes in a field that had been in cultivation for more than a century, and yet in spite of the drouth, of indifferent culture without manure, and of an early frost that prematurely killed the plants, the yield amounted to between five hundred and six hundred bushels to the acre.