The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1897-08-12
ARTlCHOKES.
Experience of a Man Who has Tried
Them.
From the Albert Lea Standard.

From the Albert Lea Standard.
For the benefit of farmers and hog
raisers I will give my experience on
artichokes as hog food. If farmers
can raise hogs for three cents pound
by feeding grain, they can certainly
raise them great deal cheaper on ar
tichokes and therefore make larger
profit:
The question why they are so cheap
food is because, in the first place
they are the natural food for hogs;
second, they are so easily raised with
very little cultivation; third, they will
produce from three to five hundred
bushels per acre, and the hogs root
their own living; no expense of har-
vesting, no extra machinery to be
bought, no hauling, the hogs will help
themselves while the farmer can 90
about his fall blowing without Stop
ping to -husk two or three loads of
corn each week.
AS healthy food the artichoke is
the best. The hog, instead of roofing
in some old yard that has been used
Tor hogs for years and dug full of FL
thy mud holes, will be roofing his Iiv-
ing in new clean ground. This work
will give the hogs more strength and a
better appetite. For brood sows the
artichoke is far better than grain of
any kind, because they are easily d.
gested and are not so heating. They
are also good milk food, and suck
ling pigs will do great deal better
when the mother is feeding on soft
food.
believe that the constant feeding
of corn and other dry grain has great
to do with 50 much disease among
hogs in our neighborhood. OF course,
some corn must be fed in order to fit
hogs for the market, but too much
does more hurt than good.
In regard to cultivating and plant
ing the artichoke, they are as large
and even larger than potatoes and can
be cut and be planted in drills the
same as potatoe and cult waited with
corn pillow same as corn.
In September they are ready to turn
the hogs into; they can stay in until
the ground is frozen in the fall. They
will not freeze out or winter-kill. The
hogs can be turned in again in the
spring and left there until the middle
OF April. Then take them away and
let the artichokes grow during sum-
mer. There will be enough left in the
ground for seed.
The ground should be plowed when
the hogs are taken away SO as to level
and loosen the ground. No planting
or cultiyating necessary after the first
season; therefore it is very little labor
to raise artichokes, and l believe that
they are the coming food for hogs.
My neighbors say they cannot get
them out of the ground. Some say
they would not have them on their
farm because they are afraid they
could not get rid of them. My an
swer to them is this: l tell them that
l am glad have got a good thing that
will stay by me. Though it is an easy
matter to get rid of artichokes either
tame or wild. If you have a field that
is run out by wild artichokes, do not
SOW it to grain in the spring, but leave
it until the last of June, then pillow it
and SOW it to millet. As soon as the
millet is hauled off, pillow again and
that field will not have any more arti-
chokes, but it will be the richest land
on your farm. The tame artichokes
can be killed the same way if required
but who wants to get rid of good
thing? FRED. PIERCE.
Geneva, July 20.