CHAPTER XVI 



SOLANACEOUS CROPS 



Tomato, Pepper, 



Eggplant, Husk Tomato. 



Tomatoes, eggplants, and their kin are hot -season 

 plants. They require nearly or quite the entire season 

 in which to mature. Usually they grow until killed by 

 frost, at least in the North, and the production of a 

 heavy crop depends largely on securing an early start. 

 They are seed-bed crops, and they need abundance of 

 quick -acting fertilizers applied relatively early in their 

 growth. They are grown in hills. 



These plants are here called solanaceous crops be- 

 cause they belong to the family Solanacea3. To this fam- 

 ily also belongs the potato, so that these plants have not 

 the exclusive right to the name; but the writer knows 

 of no other single term which can be applied to them. 



TOMATO 



Essential points in the culture of tomato are : long, 

 warm season; "quick" soil with available fertility; fre- 

 quent, or at least two or three transplanting s to obtain 

 stocky and continuous -growing plants, particularly in the 

 North; early fruiting to mitigate loss from fruit -rot and 

 to secure a heavy crop before frost; planting in hills. 



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