TOMATO CULTURE 



CHAPTER I 

 Botany of the Tomato 



The common tomato of our gardens belongs to 

 the natural order Solanaceae and the genus Lycoper- 

 sicujii. The name from lykos, a wolf, and persica, 

 a peach, is given it because of the supposed aphro- 

 disiacal qualities, and the beauty of the fruit. The 

 genus comprises a few species of South American 

 annual or short-lived perennial, herbaceous, rank- 

 smelling plants in which the many branches are spread- 

 ing, procumbent, or feebly ascendent and commonly 

 2 to 6 feet in length, though under some conditions, 

 particularly in the South and in California, they 

 grow much longer. They are covered with resinous 

 viscid secretions and are round, soft, brittle and hairy, 

 when young, but become furrowed, angular, hard and 

 almost woody with enlarged joints, when old. The 

 leaves are irregularly alternate, 5 to 15 inches long, 

 petioled, odd pinnate, with seven to nine short-stemmed 

 leaflets, often with much smaller and stemless ones 

 between them. The larger leaflets are sometimes en- 

 tire, but more generally notched, cut, or even divided, 

 particularly at the base. 



The flowers are pendant and borne in more or less 

 branched clusters, located on the stem on the opposite 

 side and usually a little below the leaves ; the first 

 cluster on the sixth to twelfth internode from the 



