330 AN/,OAL REPOIIT OF THE Off. Doc. 



dous difference it makes. This strain yielded only 4.1 tons of Jer- 

 sey Wakefield, which does not produce high to the acre, while there 

 are other stra:^^ that ran 8^ tons to the acre. You w'ill note a 

 great difference in the yielding power of different strains, showing 

 the importance of good seed. The same thing is true of the tomato 

 to a less extent. The black lines represent the tomatoes harvested 

 up to August 13th, while the long lines represent the total yield. 

 This strain yielded a little more than half as many tomatoes as this 

 strain. Suppose you are growing tomatoes for the canner for which 

 you are getting $10. a ton; you have a strain that produces 12 or 

 15 tons of tomatoes to the acre, say 15, which is not an unusual thing. 

 We have many strains at State College which are running 15 tons to 

 the acre. That means $150. to the acre. Suppose you have other 

 strains that produce only 10, that would be |100. to the acre — quite 

 a difference. There are wonderful possibilities from using better 

 seed on Pennsylvania farms, not only in market gardening but in gen- 

 eral farming as you will see later from some pictures. 



This is an interesting picture showing the influence of soil in the 

 starting of young plants. This experiment was started just this 

 spring. Most gardeners believe that the thing to do is to mix up a 

 good rich soil for starting the plants. These plants were grown in 

 rich, limestone soil in the greenhouse. I want you to note that these 

 plants are strong, vigorous and healthy. I also want you to see 

 that the root grov\'^th is not very strong; the top is all right, the foli- 

 age is all right, but the roots, with the exception of that plant, 

 are not very satisfactory. Now note the next picture and see what 

 that looks like. Here we have small plants with long, strong, vig- 

 orous roots; these plants w^ere grown in pure sand. Before I started 

 on this trip, I went out to the held where these plants are now grow- 

 ing and noticed that these plants, which are plants with small tops 

 but large root systems, are probably a third larger at this time than 

 these plants grown in a rich loam soil; so the lesson drawn from 

 this experiment, although this is the first year it has been conducted 

 is, that it is not desirable to start planting in soil too rich. The all 

 important thing to accomplish is to produce a strong, vigorous root 

 growth rather than excess of top growth. In our tomato experiment, 

 we found a plant a few years ago which produced tomatoes like 

 these, all cracked and rough, ill shaped tomatoes, and those plants 

 that continued to produce that kind of fruit where no attention was 

 given to selection. On the other hand we have found plants among 

 various varities w^hich Avere unusual in their fruiting qualities and 

 produced tomatoes like these. 



Our truckers are learning that they can make tremendous advance- 

 ment in their profits and yields by exercising greater care in the se- 

 lection of seed. The next picture shows the same lesson. Here 

 were two unusually good plants; over here we have harvested from 

 that plant 89.9 pounds of marketable tomatoes; from the ])lant over 

 there we have marketed 80 pounds of good tomatoes and liarvested 

 6.2 pounds of tomatoes not fit to send to market. Those are unusual 

 yields because they were grown on plants unusual in their profit 

 yielding capacity. A variety of tomato known to everyone is the 

 Masters, a new variety. It appeared 8 or 9 years ago. It is an 

 unusually productive tomato and very satisfactory in most soils. 

 Mr. Miles took the Hummer and crossed it on the Masters and here 



