June 15, 1907 



HORTICULTURE 



781 



The Tomato 



This vegetable is constantly advancing in importance 

 as a garden product. This fact has induced a large 

 degree of patient application in hybridizing, with a 

 view to prodiicing new and improved varieties, and 

 many kinds, with some points of superiority, have been 

 brought out within the past few years. Among the 

 generally recognized points of merit in the tomato are, 



earliness, smoothness, flavor, and solidity or fleshiness. 

 To combine these in the greatest degree is the aim of 

 those attempting to produce varieties that will be bet- 

 ter than their predecessors. Of these qualities, earli- 

 ness is especially essential to the market gardener, for 

 the reason that, l)y the ordinary mode of forwarding 

 for ten or twelve weeks by means of hot-beds, or forc- 

 ing houses, late varieties perfect scarcely half their 

 crop while the earlier kinds ripen all their fruit dur- 

 ing the summer months, and a large proportion before 

 the markets have become over-supplied and the price 

 scarcely renmnerative. 



M'OriKING rOR KAItLINESS 



Earliness in the tomato may be induced by selection, 

 and also by acclimation. Growing successively from 

 seed of the earliest ripened fruit will produce favorable 

 results, and when this i^ combined with acclimation to 

 high latitudes, a difference of several days in the earli- 

 ness of a given variety nuiy be obtained. Solidity, or 

 fleshiness, which is more peculiar to the medium and 

 late varieties, must be reproduced in earlier forms 

 mainly by hybridization. To the accomplishment of 

 this result the efforts of many cultivators have been 

 directed for a series of vears. New varieties in great 

 numbers have been intrcjduced to the public through the 

 seed-growers and dealers of the country, while many of 

 various degrees of merit pass unnoticed, or have only 

 had a local introduction. 



STANDARDS INFLUENCED BY LOCAL CONSIDERATIONS 



Tt would seem useless to multiply varieties imless the 

 acme of perfection could be reached, and a kind pro- 

 duced that would prove to be in advance of the present 

 standard sorts, although it must be borne in mind that 

 there is a great diversity of tastes, inlluenced, no doubt, 

 by local considerations. In the southern States, late 

 varieties, with fruit of large dimensions, are much in 

 favor; while in the neighboring Dominion, the earliest 

 only are popular or productive. The canning trade, 

 which has attained large proportions, calls for kinds of 

 tolerable smoothness and solidity. 



The fruit put out by market gardeners, generally, is 

 not as good as one might expect, owing to the fact that 

 a good deal of poor seed is saved and used. Too many 

 growers of seed sell their earliest and best fruit ; indeed 



continue to sell as long as it will pay to gather for the 

 purpose, then the late and ill-formed are ground up for 

 seed, to be sold cheap. Tomato-growers should save 

 their own seed from the earliest and most perfect speci- 

 mens, or buy of those who have consciences, as well as a 

 thorough knowledge of their business, and never grum- 

 ble at the price. Wait for the crop, and then, if it is 

 not good, scold. 



A BIT OF TOMATO HISTORY 



The prevalent impression that tomatoes were not 

 known to be edible more than eighty j-ears ago, is thus 

 accounted for by an authority : 



"Seed of the Tomato, in all probability, got into some 

 region where nobody knew what it was. People sowed the 

 seed and saw that the plant produced a beautiful fruit, and 

 so they adopted it for ornamental purposes, not knowing it 

 to be edible; and having no name for it, they, since all 

 things must have a name, called it a 'Love-apple.' Then 

 some writer wrote it up and gave it notoriety as the 'Love- 

 apple,' and thus the impression of its non-edible character 

 became general, even working its way and taking posses- 

 sion, as a matter of history, in regions where the tomato 

 had been so long and favorably known as an edible fruit." 



Irondeqrioit, N. Y. 



Heating Orchards 



Horticulture of May 11, 1907, contains an article 

 on "Spring Fruit Protection" which is interesting, 

 showing how smudges made of leaves, sawdust and the 

 like help control the frost situation in Germany. Here 

 in California 1 recently ran across an experiment tried 

 in an almond orchard of twenty-six hundred trees which 

 jjresents some features worthy of consideration. 



The orchard is located on low ground in a cold situ- 

 ation about four miles out of the town of Chico and 

 for several years past has lost its crop because of late 

 frosts. This year the owner, a progressive doctor, 

 decided to see what could be done towards controlling 

 conditions there. He obtained a number of cans made 

 like coffee pots, that is small end up, capable of holding 

 each about three quarts of crude oil. On the night of 

 March 11 the thermostatic arrangement in the orchard 

 sounded a warning gong as the temperature dropped to 

 the danger point. Hastily turning out, the men set the 

 oil on fire — ^the cans having been arranged previously — 

 by means of a teaspoonful of gasolene placed on top 

 and lighted. Six hundred and thirty-five cans were 

 used for the twenty-five acres and were burned for one 

 and one-half hours, consuming in that time approxi- 

 mately one quart of material each. The oil made a 

 flame five inches in diameter and one to two feet high, 

 actually heating the orchard. AYhen the critical period 

 was passed the flame was shut off by putting on tin 

 covers. 



The pots were supplied with two three-eighth inch 

 holes, on opposite sides near the top to act as safety 

 valves. In all eighty gallons of oil was burned at a cost 

 of two and one-half cents a gallon, this amount rais- 

 ing the temperature four degrees and safely tiding the 

 trees over. The only defect is that the firing wasn't 

 started quite early enough, the temperature being peril- 

 (msly close to the danger point when the last pots were 

 fired. This could be overcome by having an alarm 

 sounded at two or three degrees above freezing. In 

 this case the experiment was a success although nearly 

 28 degrees was reached before morning. 



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