34 TOMATO CULTURE 



made very rich by heavy annual manuring for sev- 

 eral years. They were all perfectly watered and 

 drained, in good heart, liberally fertilized with ma- 

 nures of proved right proportions for each field, and 

 above all, the fields were put into and kept in perfect 

 tilth by methods suited to each case ; while the plants 

 used were of good stock and so grown, set and culti- 

 vated that their growth was never stopped or hardly 

 checked for even a day. These conditions as to soil 

 and culture, together with seasons of exceptionally 

 favorable weather, resulted in uniformly large crops 

 on these widely different soils. 



The composition of the soil, then, as to its propor- 

 tions of sand or clay is of minor importance as regards 

 a maximum yield or as to quality of the fruit, except 

 as it affects our ability to put and keep the soil in good 

 physical condition. The tomato crop, however, par- 

 ticularly when the plants are trimmed and trained to 

 stakes, as is the usual practice in the South, as seen 

 in Fig. 12, with crops grown for early shipment, neces- 

 sitates in the trimming and training of the plants and 

 the gathering of the fruit when it is in the right degree 

 of maturity for shipment a great deal of trampling of 

 the surface regardless of whether it is w r et or dry. 

 Consequently if the surface soil has any considerable 

 proportion of clay there is danger of compacting and 

 even puddling it by working when wet, to the great 

 detriment of the crop. Again, a more or less sandy 

 surface soil can be much more easily worked than one 

 with a large proportion of clay. For these reasons 

 our choice of a soil for the lowest cost a bushel and 

 probably for a maximum yield should be a rich sandy 



