Sunflower Growing.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 161, 6 January 1898, Page 2

Sunflower Growing.

(By Nemo.) In south-western Russia, between the Baltic and the Black Seas, the sunflower is universally cultivated in fields. Every part of the plant is turned to use. A hundrec pounds of seed yield forty pounds of oil, and the pressed residue forms a wholesome food for cattle, us also do the leaves [ and green stalks, cut off email, all being largely eaten. The fresh flower, when a little short of full bloom, furnishes a dish for tbe table which | bears favourable comparison with the artichoke. The flowers contain a large quantity of honey, and so prove an attraction to the bees. The seeds are a valuable food for pou try ; ground into flour, pastry and ci.kes can bo made of them ; and boiled in alum and water, they yield a blue colouring matter. The carefully-dried leaf is used in place of tobacco ; the seed receptacles are made irto blotting paper, and the inner part of the stalk into writing paper ; the woody portion of the stalk is used as fuol, and from the resulting ash valuable potash is obtained. Large plantations of sunflowers grown in swampy places are a protection against intermittent fever, commonly called ague.