24 TOMATO CULTURE 



more than half the size of one of the tomato, but its 

 roots extend through the soil to a greater distance, 

 gather plant food from a greater bulk of soil, seem 

 better able to search out and gather the particular 

 food element which the plant needs than do those of 

 the tomato. This characteristic of the latter plant 

 makes the composition of the soil as to the proportion 

 of easily available food elements of great importance. 

 Tomato roots are also exceedingly tender and incapa- 

 ble of penetrating a hard and compact soil, so that the 

 condition of the soil as to tilth is of greater impor- 

 tance with regard to tomatoes than with most garden 

 vegetables. 



Another characteristic of the tomato roots is that 

 the period of their active life is short. When young 

 they are capable of transmitting water and nutritive 

 material very rapidly, but they soon become clogged 

 and inefficient to such an extent as to result in the 

 starvation and death of the plant. If the branches of 

 such an exhausted plant be bent over and covered with 

 earth they will frequently start new roots and pro- 

 duce a fresh crop of fruit, or if plants which have 

 made a crop in the greenhouse be transplanted to the 

 garden and cut back, a new set of roots will often de- 

 velop and the plant will produce a second crop of 

 fruit which, in amount, often equals or exceeds the 

 first one. But such growths come only from new 

 roots springing from the stem — never from an exten- 

 sion of the old root system. 



Characteristics of the stem and leaves. — The 

 growth of the stem and leaves of the young tomato 

 plant is very rapid and the cellular structure coarse, 



