72 TOMATO. 
sq. ft., and thought it a safer plan, as a dead plant meant 
less loss. My judgment would be that your plan would 
require much more labor in setting and caring for the 
plants, and in practice we rarely lost a plant. When I 
commenced forcing tomatoes I found that the price was 
extremely low until the last of December, but now the 
price is good in November. Prices have varied in the 
past two years from 7 cts. to 50 cts. per lb. An aver- 
age price during December, January, February and 
March has been about 30 cts. to 35 cts., I think.” 
““We plant our benches with tomatoes from 3-in. pots 
along in January and February as carnation stock is 
ready, growing them along at carnation temperature until 
we have taken off the last crop of carnation cuttings ; 
then we give a littlke more heat, and have a crop of to- 
matoes about the last of May, through June, and have 
them all off early in July. We have generally had an 
average of 6 to 6% lbs. per plant. There is much varia- 
tion in average price, according to time we get the main 
crop on, from, I suppose, Io cts. to 15 cts. per Ib.” 
‘‘Our experience with tomatoes extends only with one 
house and for one season. They were in for six months 
and one week. We sold 2,669 lbs.; gross receipts, 
$598.72, or an average of 22% cts. per Ilb.; variety, 
Lorillard ; house, toox 20 ft.”’ 
‘“We grow tomatoes only as a second crop in spring, 
bringing them in about the first of May and continuing 
through June. From two houses (20x115 ft. and 
20x Ioo ft.) we picked 3,500 lbs. of fruit, which brought 
an average price of 12 cents per pound.”’ 
Varieties. — We have forced Dwarf Champion, Loril- 
lard, Ignotum, Ithaca, Golden Queen, Golden Sunrise, 
Volunteer, Beauty, Potato Leaf, and others. Of these, 
the Dwarf Champion is least satisfactory. It does not 
grow high or free enough to allow of convenient train- 
ing, and the fruit is small and ripens slowly. Among 
