154 THE CANADIAN lIORTICULTURISr. 



TOMATOES. 



BY A. HOOD, BARRIE, ONT. 



It is part of our nature to set little value on that whicli is easily 

 obtained, and to prize liighly some things otherwise valueless because 

 they are scarce. Else why should old coins and old pictures be sold 

 for such fancy prices when the new are so much more beautiful and 

 therefore more valuable ? I say more valuable, because my standard 

 of value in a picture consists in the power it possesses of affording 

 pleasure to those who look at it, and not in that false worship that is 

 accorded to the productions of the old masters because of their age, or 

 their something, that nobody can see but the initiated. No, our 

 modern painting is wortli a dozen of them. 



But what has all this to do with Tomatoes ? Simply this, that 

 most of the readers of this journal live in favored localities, where they 

 can have them for nearly three months in the year without even the 

 trouble of sowing the seed, and naturally thev value them less because 

 so easily obtained ; while here, and in every other locality where it 

 has been the writer's fortune to reside, it is only by particular care and 

 a great deal of nursing that we are able to obtain the ripe fruit in any- 

 thing like seasonable time, and we value them accordingly. We start 

 them in the house, nurse them in the hot-bed, protect them from June' 

 frosts on the open ground, and if after all our trouble we are able to 

 make use of the ripe fruit for six weeks in the year (very frequently 

 it is only three) we consider ourselves very fortunate and amply 

 repaid for our trouble. 



It is said that a mother loves most that child that has given her 

 the most trouble and anxiety,, and it may be that I, like others, love 

 tomaotes more than I should did they tax my time and attention less- 

 But admitting my liability to a partiality of this kind, I still believe 

 that they have an intrinsic value of their own, which those who are so 

 fortunate- as to possess them in abundance are for that very reason not 

 so well able to appreciate. 



But why all this preface about such a common fruit as the tomato? 

 you will ask. Just so, but you see it is not common with me after all 

 the trouble I have in growing it. But some, who have more than they 

 want of it, can't understand that anything that is common may be at 

 the same time valuable, or a proper subject for a long articie, but I 



