Culture of the Egg-Plant. 73 



CULTURE OF THE EGG-PLANT. 



Having paid soir.e attention to the cultivation of these " shy bearers," 

 and been well rewarded for my care, I have thought that the details of my 

 experience might interest some whose horticultural studies have just com- 

 menced. 



Last year, having remo\-ed to the country late in the spring, I had to pro- 

 cure my plants from others. Six noble ones were given to me by a friend, 

 and a score were purchased from a dealer. Bringing home the latter on 

 the 26th of May in flower-pots, I found them an inch and a half in height, 

 and stout as a first-class grape-vine. They were placed in a cold frame, 

 under the shelter of a friendly board, and, by the help of frequent water- 

 ings, were kept alive. Soon they became more vigorous ; and a sprinkling 

 of bone-dust over the earth around them, and the hilling-up of the earth 

 as they could bear it, helped them no little. By the 6th of June, they were 

 ready for setting out. Soon their growth was perceptible. Fertilizers 

 were then freely applied ; the ground was worked over almost daily with a 

 rake. No weeds found a home among them. Waterings were continued. 

 Blossoms, and then young fruit, appeared. Frequently as many as forty-six 

 specimens of the fruit could be seen at one time on the plants ; and, until 

 frost came, they continued to form, ripen, and be eaten. Most of them were 

 of the long purple class ; the rest, of the New- York Improved. The fruit 

 on the former was smaller, but rather better, and certainly more easily 

 cooked, than the latter. Still the magnitude and beauty of the New-York 

 made them general favorites. 



This season, my business has been with the plants themselves, not their 

 fruit. Desiring to have an ample supply, I prepared a box four feet by 

 eighteen inches in size; and after putting in small pebbles for drainage, and 

 six or eight inches of rich, mellow soil, I placed it in the south window of my 

 kitchen, and on the 5th of February sowed the egg-plant-seed in drills two 

 inches apart. At night, the box was placed over a flue from the furnace 

 to secure the benefit of the heated air. In due time, the shoots appeared 

 thickly in the box, and, as necessity required, were thinned out. As they 

 grew, I removed some of the best to the grapery, where tliey languished and 



VOL. IV. 10 



