nearly lost in the severe winter of 1739-40, previously to which time it was almost the only kind cultivated, on account of its great superiority; but our gardeners supplying themselves on that occasion with plants from Guernsey, where the French kind is cultivated, this variety again found its way into our gardens; but was only retained until the Globe artichoke could again be reared, when the French species was no longer cultivated.

The artichoke affords a pleasant, wholesome, and nourishing food; Arbuthnot says, “it contains a rich, nutritious, stimulating juice." The Italians and French eat the heads raw, with vinegar, salt, oil, and pepper; but they are considered to be hard of digestion in a raw state, and are, therefore, generally preferred after having been boiled. In this state they are sold in the streets of Paris, and form a standing dish at a French breakfast.

The Germans and French eat not only the heads, but also the young stalks boiled, seasoned with butter and vinegar.

Artichokes are usually sent to our tables, when whole, boiled in water; but they are much preferable when boiled in oil or butter. The artichoke bottoms are generally admired

when served up either plain, ragou'd, fricasseed, fried, or pickled. Coles recommends artichoke bottoms baked in a pie after being boiled, as a restorative and strengthener of the stomach. Artichoke bottoms are dried in the sun for winter use; but the whole artichoke may be preserved for a considerable time, if covered with fresh sand. Young artichokes are pickled whole.

The stalks blanched like celery, and preserved in honey, are said to be an excellent pectoral: the roots are considered aperient, cleansing, and diuretic; and are recommended in the jaundice, for which disorder the common leaves, boiled in white-wine whey, or the juice of the leaves, are also considered salutary. We have known many persons greatly relieved from the bile, by drinking sherry wine, in which the common leaves and cut stalks of this plant had been steeped.

Lord Bacon observes, that no other herb has double leaves; one belonging to the stalk, the other to the fruit or seed.

The field-mouse is a great destroyer of the roots of these plants; and it is a good preservative of them to plant beets round the beds of artichokes; as the roots of the beet, being still more agreeable to the taste of

these little animals than those of the artichoke, preserve the latter from these depredators.

The French artichoke, Cinara scolymus, grows wild in the fields of Italy, where it often attains the height of a man.

The bottoms of the Cotton-thistle, Onopordum acanthium, are often eaten as artichokes.

27

ASPARAGUS.-ASPARAGUS.

Natural order, Sarmentacea. The genus of Asparagus is allied to Convallaria. In botany it stands in the Hexandria Monogynia class.

THIS plant takes its name from the Greek word Аomáρayos, signifying a young shoot before it unfolds its leaves. Gerard says, "it is called in English Sperage, and likewise Asparagus, after the Latin name, because asparagi, or the springes heereof, are prepared before all other plants; for the word asparagus doth properly signify the first spring or sprout of euery plant, especially when it be tender."

It is evidently a native of this country, for the same author observes, that "the manured or garden asparagus comes up of the size of the largest swan's quill;" he adds, "it is the same as the wild, but, like other vegetables, was made larger by cultivation."-" Our garden asparagus groweth

wild in Essex, in a meadowe adioining to a myll beyond a village called Thorp, and also at Singleton, not farre from Carbie, and in the meadowes neere Moulton in Lincolnshire: likewise it groweth in great plenty neere vnto Harwich, at a place called Landamerlading." Miller was of opinion, that the common asparagus which is cultivated for the use of the table, might probably have been brought by culture to its present perfection, from the wild sort, which grows naturally in Lincolnshire, where the shoots are no larger than straws. It is well known how much the asparagus is improved in size since Gerard's time (1597); and it might be still farther improved, if our gardeners were to import roots of this plant from the borders of the Euphrates, where it grows to an extraordinary thickness.

The colony of the Joxides in Caria had a singular custom respecting asparagus, which, according to ancient tradition, owed its origin to the following story :---Perigone, having been pursued by Theseus, threw herself into a place thickly filled with asparagus and reeds; and prostrating herself, made a vow, that if these plants would hide her from Theseus, she would never pull or burn them.