EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT. 311 



will present a nniform surface upon the outside, provided the 

 locules are many and, therefore, small. A large "pear" (even 

 though the wall is quite thick, but having but two seed-cavities) 

 will be pressed out of shape in the basket, and when the rind is 

 thin, as is usually the case, the fruit is flabby while still upon the 

 plant. There is much to be done in improving the rind among 

 standard sorts of tomatoes. As the eye runs over the display of 

 slices in the Plate, several fruits are seen that have the rind so 

 thin that the tomato^ — still green, as all the fruits were purposely 

 immature when used for the photograph — is more or less cor- 

 rugated. "Rough," or angular tomatoes, as a rule are defective 

 in this respect because of a lack of a proper thickness and texture 

 of rind. 



The partitions (dissepiments) between the locules are not as 

 a rule all that one desires. To say that they ought to agree in 

 texture, thickness and color with those qualities of the outer wall 

 is to very closely cover the desired points. In the old type of 

 fruits, shown upon the left hand of the Plate, the partitions, 

 although very limited in number, are of good thickness for fruits 

 with many seed-cavities, but they make up only a small percentage 

 of the contents of the tomatoes, having only two or three locules. 

 The fruits upon the right indicate that, so far as the partitions 

 are concerned, they are approaching the ideal. 



A consideration oi the walls of the fruit, in a certain sense, dis- 

 poses of that of the pulp and seeds, for when the flesh is developed 

 to its desired amount, the locules will be necessarily many and 

 small. In the evolution of the tomato fruit, there was the in- 

 crease in size, accompanied with that of the number of the par- 

 titions, thus adding to the locules. The seeds decreased rela- 

 tively, but not absolutely. A large "Ponderosa" fruit has many 

 times less seeds per pound of flesh than the "Currant" or 

 "Cherry," but of course many more than any one of these small 

 tomatoes. After the locules reached five or six, there comes a 

 broadening of the fruit, the core being more prominent than be- 

 fore. Several such fruits are shown ; while the size was aug- 

 mented, the roughness of the exterior increased, and also a cor- 

 responding amount of waste. 



