Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1879 — The Sunflower. [ARTICLE]

The Sunflower.

In many districts in the West the traveler will see growing immediately about the doors of farm houses beds of oiwHnwein. The belief of many is that the growing sunflower is a protection from malaria and a preventive of the low fevers of malarious districts. This plant, we believe, is made of but small practical use in America. A scientific writer upon the helianthus says: " Elsewhere the sunflower, if not admired, is esteemed for practical reasons. Many of our native aboriginals make bread of the seeds. It is cultivated in the South of Europe sometimes as a field crop, the seeds being used as a food for cattle and poultry, and also for making oil, which is little inferior to olive oil, is burned in lamps, and employed in the manufacture of soap. Meal and bread are said to be got from the seeds in Portugal, and these, roasted, are often substituted for coffee. The seeds are also used like almonds for making soothing emulsions, and in some parts of the Old World are boiled and fed to infants. The leaves are good fodder for cattle, the stems serve for fuel, and contain much potash. The different species of sunflower indigenous to the United States number some forty, scattering from ocean to ocean, and from New England to the Gulf. For a plant generally counted unworthy, as it is with us, it surely has many valuable uses.