190 VEGETABLE GARD'ENING. 



as the tops are frosted. There are many cultivated varieties in 

 the South. For the northern states, Early Carolina is perhaps 

 the best. 



THE POTATO FAMILY. (Order Solanaceae.) 

 The Potato Family is made up of mostly herbaceous plants 

 with rank-scented Herbage (this and the fruit more commonly 

 narcotic-poisonous J, colorless juice, alternate leaves, regular 

 flowers with the parts usually in fives. There are many poison- 

 ous plants in this group, which fact led to the tomato being re- 

 garded with much sus- 

 picion for many years 

 and the tops of pota- 

 toes and even tubers 

 that have become green 

 by exposure to sunlight 

 contain a poisonous 

 principle. Besides the 

 potato, tomato, egg 

 plant. pepper and 

 strawberry tomato, 

 wnose cultural direc- 

 tions are here given, 

 the Tobacco, Petunia, 

 Nightshade. Datura, 

 Salpiglossis. Jerusalem 

 Cherry and Xierem- 

 bergia of the gardens, 

 belong to this family. 

 Fig. 96 — Sweet potatoes and piece of vine. 



POTATO. (Solanum tuberosum.) 

 Native of the high mountain regions of South America.— 

 Grown as an annual, but truly a perennial through its tubers. 

 Its stems are more or less four angled. The flowers vary ir 

 color from white to purplish. Many kinds do not flower, and 

 most varieties seldom if ever produce fruit. The fruit is a round- 

 ish or slightly oval berry, of a green color or tinged with violel 

 brown and averaging about an inch in diameter. The pulp is 



