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THE FARMKKS HANDBOOK. 



plant, which is just pushed into the mud, and some soil pulled round 

 it. A man with a team of horses and two boys can water and transplant 

 about 1 acre of tomatoes per day. This includes digging- the holes for 

 the plants, but not the drilling. If the weather is at all favourable, the 

 plants will want cultivating in at least a month's time, and a week or two 

 later will require hilling. It is found better to turn two furrows to the 

 plants, and then clean out the intervening spaces with a cultivator. The 

 plants very soon spread all over the spaces between the drills. 



The cases used for marketing are the standard ^-bushel case, holding 

 about 22£ lb. of tomatoes, and are supplied by the factory. A good puller 

 can pull and pack fifty to sixty cases a day in a good crop, and about 100 

 cases go to the ton. 



There are few other crops which, grown under similar conditions, can 

 show returns equal to tomatoes, but the intending grower should take care 

 that he has a market ensured before plantjng largely, as the factories 

 naturally favour their own clients, and the returns in the ordinary market 

 are often very disappointing. 



Early Tomatoes at Hawkesbury Agricultural College. 



The prices received for tomatoes raised and placed upon the market before 

 the bulk crops come in more than justify the small expenditure and the 

 considerable amount of light labour required for their special treatment. 



At Hawkesbury Agricultural College, a method is adopted that has for 

 years proved this to be true, and as the College is situated in a belt of 

 country particularly liable to frost, a stud3 r of the returns obtained and a 

 brief description of the methods employed will no doubt be interesting. For 

 the season 1920-21, a gross return of £165 14s. was received from a i-acre plot, 

 315 half bushel cases being harvested, which had an average value of 10s. 6^d. 

 The actual values ranged from 16s. in early December, to 10s. on 31st Decem- 

 ber. That this is not an occasional return is shown by the following table,. 

 giving the average returns from a ^-acre plot for an eight-year period. 



Average returns over the eight years from 1911-12 to 1920-21 (excluding 1916-17 aiulf 

 1917 IS), £152 lis. 8d. 



