TOMATOES 279 



the attacks of a specific fungus disease, and if we ward off the attacks of dis- 

 ease, there will be no rot, even though the fruit may rest on the ground. I 

 have often gathered the finest of tomatoes half buried in the soil. Begin the 

 spraying with Bordeaux mixture as soon as the tomatoes are set, keep it 

 up at intervals till the fruit is half grown, and there will be less rot than if 

 they are trained off the ground and no spraying done. It is an advantage, 

 of course, in small gardens where space is scanty, to plant close like we do in 

 the forcing-house and train to single stems supported by stakes, and in this 

 way a larger crop may perhaps be gathered from a limited space by the use 

 of more plants. Where a support is used the best thing we have ever tried 

 for the support of anything in the garden needing it, is the wire poultry net- 

 ting, now sold in various widths so that it can be adapted to plants of various 

 heights. Stretched to stakes along the row the tomato plants can be pruned 

 to a single stem and set two feet apart in the row, there is always a point to 

 tie to, and the leaves, growing through the meshes will of themselves aid in 

 the support of the plant. While in the North it is perfectly practicable to 

 carry the early forwarded plants through the whole season it is not so in the 

 South, for the early plants of the garden are usually either checked badly or 

 killed by the heat and drought we usually have about the last 

 of June. If we then do not have a supply of fresh plants 

 coming on from seed sown in the open ground in April, there 

 is apt to be a cessation of tomatoes; so we always try to provide 

 this set of plants, and these, too, will usually fail by the late fall; hence we 

 have adopted the plan of sowing seed for a third crop about the first of June. 

 These plants get the advantage of the rainy season we usually have during 

 July and August, get into full fruiting in the fall, and are generally full of 

 green fruit when frost comes. We usually get more tomatoes from these 

 plants than from either of the other sowings, for when the frost comes we 

 gather all the green tomatoes and wrap them singly in paper and pack in 

 boxes and place in a room where they will be kept cool but clear of frost. 

 Then a few are taken out from time to time and placed in a warm room, 

 where they soon color up and are ready for the table. In this way we are able 

 to keep up a regular supply of tomatoes for slicing, till the forced tomatoes 

 of the hothouse are ready in January. On a large scale we are sure that 

 this late crop might be made a valuable one in the South, as the fruit can be 

 had in good condition for shipping, and better than the Florida crop, about 

 the Christmas holidays when they will bring a good price. One would sup- 

 pose from the tropical nature of the plant that th'e tomato would be a more 

 successful crop in the open ground in the South than in the North, but, as 

 we have shown, the difficulties in the growing of the crop increase as we come 



