Floral Eccentricities

a farmer about fifty years of age, while dragging some potato ground upon bottom land, about two weeks ago, discovered one of the fleshy roots of this plant, and supposing it to be an artichoke, ate of it and gave a portion to each of his two sons. He soon began to feel queer, or "funny," as he expressed it, and went to the house, where he was taken with a spasm, followed by two or three others, when he became unconscious, and within an hour, before a physician could be summoned from the village, two miles distant, he was dead. The children had probably eaten less of the root, and, being given an emetic, recovered. The plant is very common in the state, and the roots are so pleasant to the taste as to make it particularly dangerous. I may add that I ate a piece of the root of the size of a filbert with little or no unpleasant effect.--A. A. CROZIER, Ames, Iowa.