CHAPTER III 



General Characteristics of the Plant 



In the native home of the tomato, in South Amer- 

 ica, the conditions of the soil, both as regards composi- 

 tion and mechanical condition, of the moisture both 

 in soil and air, and those of temperature and sunlight, 

 are throughout the growing season not only very 

 favorable for rapid growth, but are uniformly and 

 constantly so. Under such conditions there has been 

 developed a plant which, while vigorous, tenacious of 

 life, capable of rapid growth and enormously pro- 

 ductive, is not at all hardy in the sense of ability to 

 endure untoward conditions either in the character 

 of soil, of water supply, or of temperature. A check 

 in the development because of any unfavorable con- 

 dition is never fully recovered from, but will inevit- 

 ably affect the total quantity and quality of the fruit 

 produced, even if subsequent favorable conditions re- 

 sult in the rapid and vigorous growth of the plant. 



I know of an instance where two adjoining fields 

 belonging to A and B were set with tomatoes, using 

 plants started in the same hotbed from the same lot 

 of seed. The soil was of equal natural fertility and 

 each field received about the same quantity of ma- 

 nure, though that given A's was all well decomposed 

 and worked into the soil, while that given B's was 

 fresh and raw and simply plowed in. A's field was 



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