lO TOMATO CULTURE 



be simply a garden variety, but I am inclined to the 

 belief that it is a distinct species and that the contrary 

 view comes from the study of the impure and crossed 

 stocks resulting from crosses between the true Pear 

 tomato and garden sorts which are frequently sold by 

 seedsmen as pear-shaped. Many garden sorts — like 

 the Plum (Fig. 8), the Egg, the Golden Nugget, Vick's 

 Criterion, etc. — are known to have originated from 

 crosses of the Pear and I think that most, if not all, 

 the garden sorts in which the longitudinal diameter 

 of the fruit is greater than its transverse diameter owe 

 this form to crosses with L. pyriforme. 



Cultivated varieties (L. esculentum). — This is com- 

 monly used as the botanical name of our cultivated 

 varieties, rather than as the name of a distinct species. 

 In western South America, however, there is found 

 growing a wild plant of Lycopersicum which differs 

 from the other recognized species in being more com- 

 pact in growth, with fewer branches and larger leaves, 

 and carrying an immense burden of fruit borne in 

 large clusters. The fruit is larger than that of the 

 other species but much smaller than that of our culti- 

 vated sorts ; is very irregular in shape, always with dis- 

 tinct sutures, and often deeply corrugated and bright 

 red in colo:' . The walls are thin ; the flesh is soft, with 

 a distinct sharp, acid flavor much less agreeable than 

 that of our cultivated forms of garden tomatoes. 



This has commonly been regarded by botanists as a 

 degenerate form of our garden tomatoes, rather than 

 as an original species, but I find that, like L. cerasiforme 

 and L. pyriforme, it is quite fixed under cultivation, 

 except as crossed with other species or with our gar- 



