572 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15. 



the plants of the bed every little while. An- 

 other thing, it has been weeded so much that 

 not many more weeds come up in it. Still an- 

 other thing comes in right here: The women- 

 folks around Medina are, every little while, 

 wanting some of that nice soil to grow their 

 flowers in. I set the price at 25 cts. a bushel; 

 but, I declare, if I should take soil out of that 

 particular bed to fill orders, I fear they would 

 scrape out every bit of it in no time at all; and 

 I do not know how I could replace it right off. 

 Well, every gardener or florist ought to be 

 prepared to sell nice potting-soil. You can get 

 a whole load of stable manure for .50 or 75 cts. — 

 at least, toe can. Muck from the swamp should 

 not cost more than half as much; and nice 

 sand from the lake shore, perhaps twice as 

 much as the manure. Then you can put in 

 rotted sods, decayed leaves, weeds, dirt, etc. 

 Why, the cost would not be more than five or 

 ten cents a bushel; and who would not pay 25 

 cts. for something that is just right to grow 

 seeds or start plants? A great variety of 

 refuse might go to make up this nice soil — 

 weeds, refuse, and all sorts of trash from the 

 garden, providing said trash is something that 

 will rot up fine so as to go through the garden- 

 er's sieve. If one wants less than a bushel, 

 charge him, say, 10 cts. a peck; and it will be 

 cheaper for almost any one to pay this price 

 for a nice article than to use the average gar- 

 den soil. The trouble is with us. there is 

 always a greater demand for '• nice dirt" than 

 the supply; and this real nice soil does not 

 need so very much watering. It seems to hold 

 the moisture very much better than the aver- 

 age soil. My impression is. that it must take 

 years to make it. I have heard of greenhouse 

 men shoveling out the contents of their beds 

 every year or two. Now, that is not according 

 to my ideas at all. If the soil does really 

 become infected with fungus or insect-enemies, 

 then put it out during a severe freeze, and just 

 freeze them out. 



How about the sub-irrigation part of it? 

 Well, it worked beautifully for plants that can 

 get down into the water. Almost every season 

 the Hubbard squashes, melon-vines, or even 

 cucumbers, get a start late along in the season, 

 when the plant-trade is pretty nearly over: 

 and when they once get their roots down, and 

 get down to business, it would remind you of 

 Jonah's gourd, that came up in a night. Dur- 

 ing our cellar excavations in building, we actu- 

 ally found the roots of a squash-vine down 

 three feet among the wet stones. It was under 

 glass so it could not get any rain; but yet it 

 just grew " amazingly." The water is down so 

 low that a great many plants can never get to 

 it; but when any of them do, their growth is 

 immense. 



ANOTHER TOMATO BOOK. 



About as soon as we have an industrial book 

 on some special brancn of rural industry, an- 

 other is pretty certain to follow in its wake; 

 and so it should be. One book can not well 

 cover all the departments of even a single in- 

 dustry like tomato-growing. In our own toma- 

 to book, neither myself, friend Day, nor friend 

 Cummins had much to say about originating 

 new varieties. Well, this new book on tomato 

 culture is by A. W. Livingston, the man who 

 has given the world more and better varieties 

 of new tomatoes than any other one man living. 

 Livingston gave to tlie world the Paragon to- 

 mato in 1870; in 187."i the Acme, which had a 

 greater run, perhaps, than any other tomato 

 ever known. In fact, it started a new era in 

 tomato culture; and iven now friend Day gives 

 the Acme the preference, as a rule, for his great 

 plantation of tomatois. In 1880 Livingston's 



Perfection came out, and in 1883 the Golden 

 Queen. In 1883 the same man gave us the 

 Favorite, and in 1886 the Beauty. Who is there 

 who never heard of Livingston's Beauty toma- 

 to when it came first before the world? Ire- 

 member of seeing a boy on the streets, with a 

 basketful in each hand. They were so perfect 

 in shape, color, and smoothness, that 1 stood 

 still in astonishment. Said I: 



"Will you please tell me, my friend, where 

 you got those beautiful tomatoes?" 



With quite an indifferent air, as if they were 

 nothing to be surprised at, he replied: 



" Why, up there at the grocery." 



"How much did you give for a basket of 

 tomatoes like that?" 



"Twenty-five cents." 



He then stared at me as curiously as I had 

 stared at the tomatoes. At this time I had paid 

 but very little attention to tomatoes, and hard- 

 ly knew what kinds were in the market. When 

 I found the town was full of these nice ones, 

 and nobody thought strange of it, I began rub- 

 bing my eyes. They were Livingston's Beauty. 

 Some years later a man drove up with a load of 

 tomatoes. He wanted to sell me some. I told 

 him it was not any use ; that our vines were 

 loaded with beautiful ones, and nobody would 

 give any thing for them. He lifted the cover 

 to his wagon. I ofl'ered him 25 cts. a bushel, and 

 he took me up. Said I, " Where on earth did 

 you find a wugcmload of such beauties ? " 



'• Why, we raised them in the field, of course. 

 Certainly they are beauties, for we planted the 

 seed of Livingston's Beauty, and nothing else."' 



We got the whole wagonload. and I saved the 

 seeds and sold them to the readers of Glean- 

 ings for quite a good deal more than I paid for 

 the tomatoes. But. about the book. It is 

 neatly bound in cloth, and contains 172 pages, 

 and quite a good many illustrations. It covers 

 briefly most of the points made in our new 

 tomato book; but there is little or nothing in 

 regard to the cloth-covered cold-frames to make 

 tomato-growing a success in the South. But 

 the great and special point of the book is grow- 

 ing improved varieties. Almost every one 

 would say that Livingston had originated 

 these new varieties by careful selection, per- 

 haps crossing and hybridizing our best varie- 

 ties. Nothing of the sort. He says he worked 

 something like 15 years in that line, but gave it 

 up in discouragement. He had accomplished 

 little or nothing. He gets lots of new and 

 wonderful varieties by catching hold ol sports, 

 A large field of some choice variety of tomatoes 

 is planted. He then goes out into the field with 

 his eyes open, full of enthusiasm, with all his 

 faculties on the alert for the thing he is search- 

 ing for. One is reminded of the ancient sages 

 who were in hot haste to find the philosopher's 

 stone or elixir of life. The only difference is, 

 that our venerable friend has found the object 

 which he sought — that is, in scanning such a 

 field as I have described, he found more or less 

 promising plants. Seeds were saved from these 

 plants, and he worked along this line for a to- 

 mato that came up to his expectations. When 

 he got hold of the Beauty, one can readily be- 

 lieve that he felt like shouting, if he did not 

 shout, " Eureka!" Experiment stations and 

 others have been for some years looking for a 

 tomato of the family from which we get the 

 pear and plum tomatoes. These never rot — at 

 least, we have never known them to rot. The 

 only trouble is. they are all too small. The 

 King Humbert is of this class, and also the new 

 Peach tomato. They are enormously produc- 

 tive, but have been, heretofore, too small. One 

 of the last achievements of friend Livingston is 

 his large Rose Peach tomato. This, he says, 

 averages about the size of the Acme. The new 



