10 



tlense heads of large leaves reverted to a condition akin to the wild 

 form running- up slender stems with scattered widely separated 

 leaves; such were Xos. 7250, 7<I90. 7262 and 7256. Two of the 

 varieties 7258 and 7U96 while somewhat leggy gave very good leaves. 

 Xo. 7086 proved to he a thoroughly good lettuce for Singapore, 

 yielding more than four pounds of first class hunches from five 

 square yards of soil. Xo. 7274 turned out to be iu Singapore a 

 very delicate small smooth leaved lettuce, quite fair for Singapore. 

 Xo. 7097 is a very peculiar lettuce, having leaves speckled with 

 pale brown. It runs somewhat to stems but produces fair leaves. 

 X"o. 7260 made a fairly good bunch, of large smooth leaves. There- 

 fore, for this season and soil, Xos. 7086 and' 7260 may be used 

 with assurance of obtahiing good results. The remainder should 

 be given a further trial. « 



Tomatoes. 

 ■ Tomatoes are the most tender plants of the garden and the 

 most difficidt to handle successfully. They are extremely suscep- 

 tible to disease, especially to the so-called " solanaceous wilt" 

 which is widely spread in the tropics and also affects tobacco and 

 some other plants. Most old gartlen soils are infected with the 

 organisms of this wait disease. Therefore, for surest success with 

 tomatoes, we must use either virgin soil, or a soil thoroughly 

 sterilized by burning, by steam, or by boiling water. Also tomatoes 

 thrive better on well-manured well-drained light sandy loams than 

 on heavy or soggy soils. All of these well-known facts came out 

 <-learly in the course of the trials, here described. 



The young plants were handled in the same way as lettuce. 

 They were then divided into lots and planted in a variety of situa- 

 tions and on a variety of soils. Facilities were lacking for steri- 

 lising any considerable amount of soil; and labour was lacking for 

 o])ening up new ground. The plants put out, whatever their 

 variety, on the heavy soggy soils or on the old soils were soon des- 

 troyed by wilt. However on one small part of the garden there 

 ^ exist a few well-raised beds of vei;}' sandy soil; and on these beds 

 when well-manured, three out of the many varieties developed 

 ra|fidly into strong plants, only a few among them dying from wilt. 

 On some beds nearby but less sand.y, Xo. 7173 (Early Ruby 

 Tomato) developed far enough to set large good tomatoes before 

 it succumbed to wilt. The varieties which showed the greatest 

 resistance to wilt and the readiest adaptability to the Singapore 

 conditions at the season of their testing were Xo. 7169 (Buckeye 

 State) and 7146 (Perfection). It seems certain that fine results 

 may be obtained with these two if proper methods are used. While 

 the facilities available did not permit of the trial being properly 

 carried out on a garden scale, interesting result were got on using 

 pots filled with pre])ared soil. Among these are pot-grown plants 

 there was very much less wilt and at the time of writing they are 

 setting healthy young tomatoes.* 



*It is not recorded how many fruits they gave, but No. 71G0 gave one fruit 

 weighing 2'1 oz.; two fruits of No. 7176 weighed together 2^ oz, two of 

 7173 weighed together 2^ and three of 7147 weighed together 5J oz., which 

 figures indicate the size. I.H.B. 



