THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 97 



EGG PLANTS. 



[With Coloured Illustration of Varieties of Solanum ovigeriun.) 



|GG PLANTS are so rarely seen in English gardens that 

 it is fair to assume they are not sufficiently understood. 

 The reader will be inclined to ask why they should be 

 understood, and it is part of our business to indicate 

 the claims they have on our attention as garden plants. 

 They are in any case interesting and handsome, and worth growino' 

 to vary the round of decorative plants available in the summer 

 season. But they are all eatable, and two or three sorts amongst a 

 -dozen or so in cultivation are of such high character that those who 

 will grow them, and cook them and eat them, will enjoy the gratifi- 

 cation of having discovered a new pleasure. In the summer of 

 1873 we grew a large collection of Egg Plants from seeds supplied 

 by Mr. William Bull, of King's Road, Chelsea, and they afforded 

 us so much amusement that we had a plate prepared to represent 

 the more distinct varieties, hoping thereby to be enabled to interest 

 our readers in a somewhat new subject. 



The Egg Plant, Solanum ovigerum, is an annual of somewhat 

 coarse growth, producing flowers resembling those of the potato, 

 which are followed by fruits of various shapes and colours, all of 

 which are edible and wholesome. The variety which produces white 

 fruit is the best known, and is the one generally cultivated for ornn- 

 mental purposes, its fruits bearing a close resemblance to fowls' 

 egrrs. This, however, is the least valuable as an esculent, and there- 

 fore when Egg Plants are grown for the table, the common white 

 variety is not worthy of attention. They are strictly greenhouse 

 ])lants, requiring the same cultivation as balsams or capsicums. 

 Ours are grown in a house devoted to summer cucumbers, which do 

 not shade the Egg Plants over-much, and these last occupy vacant 

 places on the beds in which the cucumbers are planted, saucer? 

 being placed bottom upwards for the Egg Plants to stand upon to 

 prevent them rooting through into the borders that are occupied 

 with the roots of the cucumbers. The seed is sown in pots or pans 

 in March or April, and has the advantage of a mild hot-bed to start 

 it into growth. As soon as the plants are large enough, they are 

 potted singly in thumb pots, the soil being light and rich as for 

 fuchsias or balsams. They are kept rather close and warm until 

 they have made a fresh start, and thenceforward they require very 

 little care indeed, for the same amount of warmth, and air and atmo- 

 spheric moisture that suit the cucumbers suit them also perfectly. 

 They are shifted on as fast as they fill their pots with roots, until 

 they occupy eight or ten-inch pots, after which they are allovred to 

 become pot-bound, and they soon flower and fruit freely. The 

 C'dture might begin in February for an early supply of fruit, but 

 the young plants would require a good hot-bed or a snug corner in 

 the stove to keep them going until the season was sufficiently 

 advanced to enable them to take their places without harm in the 



April. / 



