228 . STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A FEW WORDS ABOUT TOMATOES. 



BY PROF. W. W. TRACY OP DETROIT. 



National and family resemblance in character is a universally recop:- 

 nized fact. We expect a Scotchman to be serious, earnest, industrious, 

 frugal ; and we are not surprised if a negro is happy, careless, lazy, shift- 

 less. In like way, there are race and family resemblances in plants. All 

 the grass family are quickly affected, as to quickness of maturity or earli- 

 ness, by the climatic conditions under which they are grown. Corn taken 

 from Vermont to Florida will in a few generations become later and lar- 

 ger, and if taken back to Vermont will hardly mature at all. But culti- 

 vate it there a few years, and it loses its size and regains its earliness. 

 Wheat, oats, and grass are similarly affected. On the other hand, I have 

 known of watermelon seed being taken from Michigan to Georgia and 

 grown there for five generations, and then brought back to Michigan, and 

 mature just as early as seed that had been grown here the same length of 

 time. By taking special care I have grown a very late-maturing Persian 

 melon here for six generations, but without gaining an hour in earliness, 

 and I have never known of an instance of plants of the cucumber family 

 gaining a single day in earliness through cultivation at the north. 



Now, I think the tomato family (the tomato, egg-plant, pepper and po- 

 tato) have a characteristic which has an important bearing on their cul- 

 tivation. It is this, that in order to produce a full crop the plants must 

 grow at a steady and uniform rate from the starting seedling to the ma- 

 turing crop. Perhaps I can make my meaning more easily understood, 

 and enforce its importance, by illustration. A few years ago I took 100 

 tomato plants, about two inches high,, they having just made their first 

 pair of true leaves, and divided them into four lots, as uniform as possible 

 in the size and character of the plants. Two lots were set in a long box 

 and the other two in another, and the boxes set together on the side bench 

 of a greenhouse. One box was turned end for end every day, thus giving 

 each lot in it an equal chance. The other was not moved; and the result 

 was that, when it came time to set the plants in the open ground, the two 

 lots of plants in the box that had been turned were uniform in size and 

 character, while in the other box the lot at one end were nearly twice as 

 tall and much softer than the other. The four lots of plants were set and 

 given an equal chance. In six weeks they all seemed equally large and 

 healthy. The crop from the four lots was picked and weighed separately, 

 and between the two lots from the first box there was less than two ounces 

 per plant difference in weight of crop; but between the other two there 

 was a difference of over 20 ounces per plant. Last summer, Mr. E. A. 

 Starr of Royal Oak started a lot of tomato plants. When fit to prick 

 out into cold-frames, he divided with a neighbor. Mr. Starr's plants 

 were set in a cold-frame and so managed that they grew slowly and stead- 

 ily up to the time of setting out. They were carefully set out, so care- 

 fully as to be scarcely checked at all. During the season they were 

 so cultivated that they made a steady but not rank growth up to the 

 time of fruiting. The result was a yield of over 700 bushels per 



