TOMATO, 257 
nations or winter lettuce. The house should be warm 
and very bright, with at least 5 or 6 feet of head room 
above each bench (pages 153, 8). 
The temperature for tomatoes should be about 60° to 
65° at night, and about 75° at day (page 154). 
The soil should be rich, but the manure which is used 
in the earth should be well rotted and broken down. 
Rich, rather loose garden loam, to which a fourth or fifth 
of the bulk of fine manure is added, makes an ideal soil. 
Liquid manure may need to be applied when the plants 
come into bearing (pages 154, 53). 
Tomatoes should always have bottom heat, unless, 
perhaps, for the late spring or early summer crop. They 
are grown in both benches and boxes, nearly all com- 
mercial growers preferring the former because of their 
cheapness. The benches contain from 6 to 8 inches of 
soil (page 157). 
House tomatoes are grown both from seeds and cut- 
tings, and both methods are in common use. When 
made from strong, healthy shoots the cuttings are prob- 
ably in every way as good as seedlings, and they usually 
bear sooner; but cuttings are likely to perpetuate a weak- 
ness of a plant, and they are apt to give only indifferent 
results when taken from old and partially exhausted 
plants. On the whole, seedlings are probably preferable 
(page 155). 
The second crop of the season (coming on in late 
winter) may be obtained either from new seedling plants, 
from cuttings, from a shoot trained out from the old 
stump, or by burying the old stem and allowing the tip 
to continue to grow. Seedlings are usually preferable, as 
indicated in the last paragraph (page 166). 
From four to five months are required, after seed-sow- 
ing, to secure ripe fruit. Seeds are usually sown in flats, 
and the young plants should be handled at least twice 
(preferably into pots) before they are put into permanent 
quarters (page 155). 
