Sharp County record., 1882-09-07
The SunfOwer.

The learned world contends that the
laws of thinking are determined by
logic, the laws of eating by ethics, and
the laws of feeling by aesthetics. Oscar
Wilde, the great English Beau Brum-
mel, visited this country as an embassa-
dor to teach Americans the Beautiful in
art. He came in the character of the
gaudily dressed clown as a sunHower
among flowers as best calculated to i'm
press upon the crude American mind
the True, the Good and the Beautiful.
He ran his race had his day, gained his
pile, and retired to chuckle over Yam
kee gulibility. But is there no good to
be derived from the Oscar Wilde raid?
He brought more prominently before
the American people that useful, but
long neglected plant, HeItantbuS An''~tIS
the sunhower, 1t is of strong and
vigorous growth, towering above all
competing noxious weeds, defying their
power and laughing at their efforts to
exceed it in rapidity of growth or state
illness of stature. 1t has strong claims
to be cultivated as field crop, as its
seeds are useful and profitable for vari-
Gus purposes. 1t is also claimed that it
is highly salutary in warding off dis
ease in maarial districts, such as inter-
mittent and remittent fevers, disorgan-
lied spleen, liver, stomach, intestines,
dropSy, palsy, apoplexy, etc, which
are more or less the effects of malaria.
Il is not only the ignorant, but learned
who claim partial immunity from these
diseases when surrounded by rows of
thrifty sunfowers. But its direct prac-
tical uses are various. As field crop
it has many economical purposes, In
regions where fuel is scarce. its large
stems are proftably used as fuel. The
seeds contain a large quantity of
oil, which could, before the cheap coal
OIL be manufactured cheaply Tor illum-
mating purposes. And it is now large
ly used in place of, and as good as, olive
oil for manufacturing the choicest
soaps. In Portugal, and other European
and Asiatic countries, it is largely made
into meal and bread for the inhabitants,
and is roasted and used a. coffee. 1t is
probqb.y the best food which can be pro-
vided for poultry.
AS an article of food for stock, it
probably has but few superior5. Cake
meal made of sunhower seed has been
ascertained by scientific analysis to con-
tain sixteen per cent. Of fat and from
thirty-fye to forty per cent. OF protein
substance, thus rendering choice food
for cattle or chickens. Experiments
have demonstrated that it is equal if not
superior to oil cake or cotton meal cake
for milk COWS, adding largely to the
quantity and quality Of milk, and i'm
proves the flavor of butter 1t is claimed
by those who have tried it in the United
States, and in Sweden, where it has
been largely raised, that as many bush
els of seed per acre can be raised as of
corn. And the seasons are never too
short for a perfected crop, and that like
the cookie bur, the dock or the thistle,
THE season IS never too wet or too dry
for its prosperity.
And thus the posturing and parading
of the gaudily dressed, and to plain peo-
pie, the insane grotesqueness OF Oscar
Wilde to educate the American people
into the aesthetic science of the beauti-
full in art, may prove that nothing is
wholly useless or evil But it may call
the attention more directly to the great
usefulness of the sunhower which Oscar
paraded as the fora giganta of the floral
world. -IoaOG State Register.