Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/818

 782 ARTICHOKE generally preferred by gardeners. Artichoke seed should be sown in a gentle hot-bed or warm open border as early in the spring as frost will permit. The plants should be set four feet apart each way, in a stony soil, well prepared. They will bear heads the succeeding year. Some gardeners place six plants in a hill, making the hills six feet apart. Ar- tichokes may be raised from seta or shoots, which should be removed and carefully transplant- ed. As often as heads are removed from a plant, it should be broken down to encourage the growth of new shoots. In autumn all plants should re- ceive a good supply of earth or litter. Stable dung is too heating, and should never be employed. In the spring remove the autumn covering and take away all offsets except two or three of the best. During the first season the young plants of the previous year will produce heads from June to October. In succeeding years they will give heads from May to June or July. To have them the whole season, an annual plantation must be made. The flowers of the artichoke have the property of rennet in curdling milk. The French use the heads of the second crop of artichokes when dried, baked in meat pies with mush- rooms. Artichoke heads are sometimes made to grow larger by tying a ligature tightly around the stem three inches below each. The JERU- SALEM ARTICHOKE (helianthu* tuberoattn, order composites) is not a true artichoke, but the root t Globe Artichoke. ' T Tuber of Jerusalem Artichoke. of a species of sunflower. In Italian it is named girasole, or sunflower, which in English is cor- rupted into Jerusalem. In America it is some- times called Canada potato or Virginia potato. It was well known in England as an edible root about the year 1620, having been brought from ABTICULATA Brazil. The tubers are good for swine and cattle. They are capable of resisting the se- verest degree of cold when left in the soil the whole winter ; being lifted in spring, they form excellent food for stock. The Jerusalem arti- choke may be raised hi all classes of soil, and when grown in light sands and gravels, swine are allowed to dig the tubers for themselves. It is difficult to eradicate this plant from the soil, and it is seldom entirely removed where once rooted in a rich soil. The tops cured hi autumn form an excellent hay, yielding five or six tons per acre. Sandy soil of fair quality is said to yield from 1,200 to 1,500 bushels per acre. They are not quite as nutritious as the potato, containing 72*2 per cent, of water, being about 4 per cent, more than is contained in the potato. Cordage is sometimes made out of the tops, and hi the south of Europe a kind of coarse cloth is manufactured from them. All IK I LA TA, the third great division of the animal kingdom in the classification vf Cuvier, and by him subdivided into four classes. Other naturalists have added four more, making the following eight classes, of which the first four are those of Cuvier : 1. Annelida, as leeches, earthworms, &c. 2. Crustacea, as crabs, lobsters, prawn, shrimps, &c, 8. Arachnlda, as spiders, scorpions, mites, IM >c l;i. as barnacles and sea acorns. 7. Rotifera, wheel-shaped animalcules, aquatic. 8. Entozoa lowest of the worms parasites upon or with- in Other animal*. Each of these classes will be found treated un- der its own name. The articnlata may properly be ranked, upon the whole, as higher in the animal scale than the mollusca, although, as in this division, some species may be found less highly organized than are some of the radiata, the fourth division of the series ; for the ar- ticulata possess a high development of the loco- motive organs, in which the mollusca are par- ticularly deficient. The nervous system also is so organized that it presents a sufficient characteristic for designating the group; and the name homogangliata has been proposed by Prof. Owen as a substitute for that of articu- lata, this having reference only to the external conformation of the body in transverse rings, which may be of the soft skin or integument, or else serve, in the form of a hard shell, as an external skeleton, to which the muscles are at- tached. This arrangement of the nerves is a chain of knots or ganglia, symmetrically dis- posed upon a double cord, which passes through the ventral region of the body, and from each ganglion nervous filaments pass off" to the dif- ferent segments of the body. A nervous ring from the anterior pair of ganglia encircles the oesophagus. Filaments connect this with the organs of the senses, and the oesophageal ganglia have hence been regarded as analogous to the brain in the higher orders. They are more and more concentrated as the animal oc- cupies a more elevated position in the division, the members of the body being at the same