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GARDEN FARMING 



vegetables. The eggplant is a subtropical plant and tender to frost. 

 It requires a long season for growth and maturity, and therefore is 

 not cheap to produce. 



Botany. Botanically, the eggplant belongs to the Nightshade 

 family, which includes the potato and the tomato, but it is more 

 closely related to the pepino than to either of these two. The Latin 

 name given the plant by Linnaeus is Solatium melongena. The 

 cultural varieties of this species include a diversity of forms and 

 colors chiefly in the fruit. In fact there are certain varieties of the 



FIG. 95. Fruit of eggplant ; whole, and cut to show seed cavity 



eggplant which so closely resemble the pepper on the one hand and 

 the tomato on the other, that only those familiar with these varieties 

 can indentify them easily. In color the fruits vary from shades of 

 purple and red to white ; in shape some are like an egg, others like a 

 tomato, while others are large and globular or elongated. Figure 95 

 shows the outline and cross section of a New York Purple eggplant. 

 Practically all the important commercial sorts of eggplant belong 

 to botanical varieties of the species Solanum melongena. The com- 

 mon eggplant, or Guinea squash, to which our large-fruited forms 

 like New York Purple belong, are grouped under the variety escu- 

 lentum. The serpentine, or snake, eggplants are placed under the 



