DIVISIOX OF HORTICULTURE 551 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



A quantity of tomato seed has been secured for the purpose of distribution to 

 experimentalists. This seed was saved from the best of our early strains and is recom- 

 mended for northerly districts that have short sununer seasons. It has been developed 

 oxpressly with the object of producing a large proportion of its entire crop within 

 the first three weeks of cropping. This variety does not produce a total yield as great 

 as such varieties as Success, Bonny Best, or Challc's Jewel, but in districts where 

 early autumn frosts are likely to be experienced, the yield of ripe fruit obtained from 

 these early strains of Earliana have. exceeded the yield obtained from varieties that are 

 more generally grown in southern sections. It may here be said, with reference to 

 the growing of this early strain, that the seed has been obtained solely from the 

 earliest ripe fruit, and is now more or less acclimatized to the climatic conditions 

 around Ottawa. It has been noticed, however, that under changed climatic conditions, 

 the seed grown in Ottawa does not succeed as well the first season as seed saved from 

 these plants in the locality to which the seed was originally sent and there grown the 

 second season. In explanation of this fact, it may be pointed out that the plants 

 grown from this seed in a new locality, those that mature, are the most suited to the 

 new climatic conditions in which they find themselve-s, and being the most successful 

 in producing a crop, are the ones that will be chosen as seed parents. In this way 

 an elimination is made of plants not so suited to the locality in question, and the 

 later results show an encouraging improvement over earlier efforts in growing that 

 crop. 



Tkis improvement being a generally acknowledged fact, it behooves large growers 

 of tomatoes to experiment with several varieties until they have found the best and, 

 'while doing this, they should save their own seed. In consideration also of the?e factsi, 

 all experimenters who may be testing early strains as distributed from the Central 

 Experimental Farm are requested to report on the quality of the crop produced from 

 the seed they may have procured, and to save seed from thid crop to grow a second 

 year. I venture to say that many more would save their own seed were they fully 

 aware of the improvement gained by so doing. 



Regarding the saving of tomato seed, the following facts may be of assistance to 

 those desiring to save their own seed : — 



1. Choose early, smooth, medium-sized fruits, and keep them until fully ripe. 



2. Cut the fruit in half and squeeze the pulp containing the seed into some 

 vessel such as a glass jar, add about one-third the volume of water, leave this in a 

 dark warm room until it shows signs of fermentation (this .should bo in about two 

 days). 



3. Pour the pulp over a wire screen (the screen is made of fine wire, twelve 

 meshes to the inch, or the usual grade of wire screening used for screen doors). 



4. Wash the pulp thoroughly with water until all except the seeds has passed 

 through the screen. 



5. Leave the seed on the screen to dry (not in the sun). 



6. When the seed is thoroughly dried, place it in either a paper or cl<jth bag, 

 lieing careful to store it where the mice cannot destroy it. 



Explanation of plate. — 1, 2, 3, and 4 are troughs over which the seed is washed, 

 the pulp and water flowing into the tubs below. On troughs 2 and 3 may be seen 

 (jne-twelfth inch mesh screens with seed on them drying. On trough 4 are two screens, 

 the upper one being a coarse screen, mesh one-quarter inch, for rubbing the pulp 

 through on to the finer screen below, the upper screen only sorting out the skin and 

 hard pulp of the tomatoes, the lower for obtaining the seed. Two glass bottles 

 partially filled with tomato pulp, and the hose employed for wa~hiiig, nu^y also be 

 seen. 



Ottawa. 



