THE MUTATIONS OF LYCOPERSICUM. 155 



improved fruit varieties of the tomato is only a few years under favor- 

 able conditions; and constant care is necessary to maintain their fine 

 quality. Therefore the tendency to deteriorate is doubtless inherent; 

 but this result is evidently hastened by careless cultivation, repeated 

 planting of the same ground without rotation with other crops, the 

 growing of plants from unharvested seed, cross pollination with in- 

 ferior kinds, differences in character and fertility of the soil, and the 

 influence of a climate much warmer than, or otherwise different from, 

 the one in which the seed was produced. That this fruit degeneration 

 is sometimes slow and sometimes sudden; that it is imminent and 

 variously excited to action; that it is not confined to sporadic cases 

 of single plants, but may, and often does, equally affect a whole crop, 

 and sometimes all the crops of a wide region, is shown by the following 

 statements of relevant facts. 



Every person who habitually visits the vegetable markets of any 

 one of most of our towns and cities which are supplied from neigh- 

 boring gardens is familiar with the different grades in quality of the 

 tomatoes there on sale. Indeed, it is often easy to recognize among 

 them different stages of reversion from some of the more common im- 

 proved varieties, notably the Acme. These are too plainly cases of 

 gradual degeneration, resulting from careless cultivation and crossing 

 with inferior kinds, to need explanation. Several of my correspond- 

 ents have furnished me with important corroborative facts. Dr. Geo. 

 G. Groff writes that he has for many years observed in central Penn- 

 sylvania, that tomato plants which sprang from seed of good varieties 

 left in the ground during the winter always produced inferior fruit, 

 usually the small kind called cherry tomatoes. Miss Mary E. Starr 

 informs me that during her residence in Saint Martin's Parish, 

 southern Louisiana, her father found it necessary to procure tomato 

 seed from the north for every crop grown on his plantation, because 

 the seed from even the first crop of tomatoes grown there usually 

 produced very small and inferior fruit. Mr. L. S. Frierson, however, 

 writing from northwestern Louisiana, says that he has produced ex- 

 cellent fruit, true to seed, from his home-grown crops. Mr. H. J. 

 Browne, of Washington, D. C, sent me from a plantation near Havana, 

 Cuba, a small parcel of cherry tomatoes taken from plants which he 

 found growing there luxuriantly. The planter assured him that they 

 were the immediate progeny of the first Cuban crop of a fine large 

 fruited variety, the seed of which he obtained from New York under 

 the well-known varietal name of Trophy. He also asserted that such 

 degeneration was always the result of his attempts to raise tomatoes 

 from Cuban-grown seed, however fine might be the variety from which 

 his original seed was obtained. The fruit of the first Cuban crop, 

 like that of southern Louisiana, was always true to northern seed, 



