GIRASOLE, or JERUSALEM ARTI CHOKE, a species of sunflower, of the genus Helianthus, native of the western hemisphere. In northeastern United States and adjacent Canada this and other closely allied species de velop edible tubers. The tubers arise from un derground stems or earth-branches but differ from the potato in that the branch itself may swell up and become a tuber. The species pro ducing tubers are H. tuberosus, H. subtuber osus, the so-called Indiana .potato of Michigan and Minnesota. The species, H. doronicoides, native from Ohio to Arkansas, is used as food in Europe. These tuber-bearing species were well known to the aborigines of America be for the advent of the whites. We find them mentioned by Champlain in 1603, and specimens of H. tuberosus were brought to France by Lescarbot. The Jerusalem artichoke (H. tuber osus) is the tuber-bearing species par excel lence, and is the only contribution of North America, exclusive of Mexico, to the vegetable garden of the world. The name artichoke ap pears to have been given it solely on account of its flavor, which is more or less similar to that of the Old World artichoke (Cynara scolymus), while "Jerusalem" is an English cor ruption of the Italian Girasole, sunflower. The
term (Jerusalem artichoke" is therefore very misleading. At the present time it is in higher esteem in the Old World than in the land of its origin. The tubers are planted three feet apart, in rows two feet apart, each plant occupying six square feet. In good soils no fertilizer is needed and the yield averages about nine tons to the acre. As compared with potatoes the yield per acre is greater in the regions best adapted to the artichoke — the in termediate region between the sweet potato of the South and the potato of the Northern and upland regions. It is an excellent food for hogs and may also be used as a boiled vegetable, as salad or in soup for man. Consult 'Farmers' Bulletin 331' (Washington, D. C.) and article by T. D. A. Cockerel' (in The Scientific Monthly, March 1918).