228 TBUCK-FAKMING AT THE SOUTH. 



SAVING THE SEEDS. 



For seed, the earliest well-matured, and in every re* 

 spect, the choicest fruit should be selected, and those 

 which were grown on soil best adapted to the tomato. 

 As the objectionable knobby fruit is produced from dou- 

 ble flowers, and these are said to result from the use of 

 old seed, the fruit from which to save seed should only 

 be gathered from plants raised from fresh seed. The 

 fruit, when soft arid over-ripe, should be mashed in any 

 convenient vessel and stirred daily for three or four days, 

 when the seed may be washed from the pulp and dried. 



INSECTS. 



Young tomato plants are liable to be cut down by sev- 

 eral kinds of cut-worms.* During the Spring of 1882, 

 the green larvse of Sphinx Carolina, and Sphinx quinque- 

 maculata were very numerous and destructive; but gener- 

 ally, owing to paucity of number, the damage is slight. 

 More severe injury is done, and particularly to the 

 earlier and therefore most valuable part of the crop, by 

 the caterpillar of the Cotton-boll worm, (or the " Corn- 

 seed worm," Heliothis armigera.) They rarely, and 

 only when very young, touch the leaves ; but penetrate 

 the green fruit, one worm often boring into several. 

 Hand-picking in either case is the only remedy. Just 

 before the first picking for market, all the punctured 

 fruit should be gathered and either fed to the stock or 

 destroyed. 



Sometimes a large green worm may be found with one 

 or two of what appear to be very minute eggs, adhering 

 tightly to the skin at one of the rings of the body, 

 or covered apparently, with eggs. Such a worm should 

 not be destroyed. The supposed eggs are the chrysalides 

 of an Ichneumon fly, its appropriate insect enemy. 



*See Chapter on Insects. 



