TOMAHAWK 



5832 



TOMATO 



Consult Biruhoffs Tolstoy, His Life and Work; 

 Knowlson's Leo Tolstoy; Turner's Count Tolstoy 

 as Novelist and Thinker. 



TOM'AHAWK, originally a war club or 

 hatchet, used by the North American Indians. 

 In early times tomahawks were clubs of deer 

 horn or stone attached by cords of skin to 

 wooden handles. When the Europeans formed 

 alliances with the Indians they introduced a 

 new kind of tomahawk which could be used as 

 an implement of warfare or as a tobacco pipe. 

 The handle formed the stem and the blunt side 

 of the hatchet head was hollowed out to hold 

 the tobacco. Tomahawks were employed in 

 close conflicts or were thrown with great skill 

 from a distance so that the sharp edge of the 

 hatchet would strike the enemy. The phrases 

 burying the hatchet and digging up the hatchet 

 are Indian expressions, equivalent to making 

 peace and declaring war. 



TOMATO, tohma'toh, or tohmah'toh, a 

 fruit which is always regarded as a vegetable, 

 and is eaten either raw or cooked. It belongs 

 to the same family as the potato, the egg- 

 plant and the tobacco plant. It is inter- 

 esting to note regarding these three members 

 of the family, that while the valuable part of 

 the tomato plant and the eggplant is the seed 

 pod, or fruit, the edible part of the potato 

 plant is its roots, and the only usable part of 

 the tobacco plant is its leaves. 



The tomato was originally native to South 

 America, probably Peru, and was first intro- 

 duced into Europe and North America as a 

 decorative garden plant, known as the love 

 apple. It was not until about the year 1800 

 that people discovered it to be good to eat and 



THE TOMATO 







began using it as a food. The fruit was then 

 much smaller, was irregular in shape and 

 wrinkled; scientific cultivation was necessary 

 to produce the round, red, smooth and firm to- 

 mato of to-day. 



Tomatoes are very sensitive to frost, but 

 otherwise they are easy to cultivate. The seed 

 should be planted indoors under glass; the 

 young plants are transplanted to the field or 

 garden as soon as the frost is out of the ground. 



New Jersey 

 132 



Florida 

 1839 



Maryland 

 038 



New York 

 776 



Delaware 

 584- 



Figures Represent Thousands of Dol lars 

 THE CROP 



Average value of the tomatoes grown in a year 

 in the six leading centers of production. 



If set about three and a half feet apart the 

 plants will have room to develop without 

 crowding, and give opportunity for clean culti- 

 vation. If the plants are tied up and trained 

 on stakes or a trellis they will grow often to a 

 height of six feet. If, in addition, the vines are 

 pruned to one or two stems and the fruit is 

 kept off the ground, the yield is increased. 



The heat-producing value of tomatoes is very 

 low, about 105 calories to the pound, as com- 

 pared with 575 calories for sweet potatoes or 

 440 calories for plain boiled potatoes (see FOOD, 

 subhead Chemistry oj Food}. But because 

 they contain valuable mineral salts and acids, 

 added to their delightful flavor, tomatoes have 

 become increasingly popular as an article of 

 food. In Italy many table dishes contain to- 

 matoes. In America sauces and relishes and 

 pickles are made from the fruit, both the green 

 and the ripe, and large quantities are canned. 

 In fact, so popular have factory-canned toma- 

 toes become that the home-canning industry 

 has greatly decreased. The output of canned 

 tomatoes is larger in the United States than 

 that of any other fruit. New Jersey ranks first 

 in the production, then come Maryland, 

 Florida, New York and Texas, in the order 

 named. 



Tomato Canning;. In these volumes, on page 

 2249, directions for canning tomatoes are given. 

 Other information related to the growing of this 

 vegetable will be found in the following articles : 



