490 XEW JEK8EY AGEICULXURAL COLLEGE 



Crossed eggplants have, with iis. always shown a remarkable vigor, 

 and this instance is a striking application of the rule. The block 

 showed so many good qualities in strength of plant and fruitfulness, 

 and with all so uniform in fruit characteristics, that a considerable 

 quantity of seed, was saved from the best plants, which will be dis- 

 tributed under the record number 18x2 (Station Eggplant No. 1), 

 that its merits may be tested by those who grow this kind of vegetable 

 for profit as well as home use. 



Something of the nature of the fruit of this cross is shown in the 

 lower part of Plate IX. There a young fruit is shown, surface view 

 and in section, in the middle of the picture, and the male parent upon 

 the left and the mother upon its right-hand. It escapes the objec- 

 tionable feature of both parents by being enough larger than the 

 "Black Snake" and smaller than the "Xew York Improved" to make 

 good-sized slices and many of them. It is to be remembered that 

 the ''Black Snake" is an early and profuse bearer, holding on in our 

 climate until the frosts cut down the plants, but the fruits are too 

 slender to be acceptable in the market. The cross in question brings 

 up the size of the fruit and makes them of a convenient shape for 

 cooking without any apparent loss of vigor and fruitfulness of the 

 plant. The mother variety has the calyx strongly purple, with the 

 flesh of the fruit beneath its lobes colored green. The fruits, in 

 maturing, turn of a straw-yellow shade. These qualities the cross 

 has in some instances and not in others, a point perhaps without 

 practical value, but of interest in the breeding of this vegetable. 



The breeding together of the two varieties in question seems to 

 show that the "Black Snake" dominates over the "Xew York Im- 

 proved." This is shown in an emphatic manner in the matter of 

 spines. The male parent is a spiny sort, while these objectionable 

 ]K)ints are absent from the "'Black Snake." Xo spines have l^een 

 found upon the cross, and the writer has frequently drawn its foliage 

 til rough the hands and rubljed the calyx and fruit stalk without feeling 

 the least discomfort. It seems quite evident that the cross, when 

 fixed, will be a commercial sort that is truly spineless, a fact not mat 

 with in any of the large-fruited varieties that have been grown in 

 the Gardens. 



The cross in question is not a mammoth "Black Snake," a^ might 

 be inferred from the above, for the "Xew Y'ork Improved" has im- 

 parted a good share of its qualities, easily seen, for example, in the 



