66 TOMATO CULTURE 



sowing, the same care being taken to put the ground 

 into good condition as is recommended for the spring 

 planted crop. 



A second plan, which has sometimes given most 

 excellent results, is to cut back spring set plants which 

 have ripened some fruit but which are not completely 

 exhausted, to mere stubs, and spade up the ground 

 about them so as to cut most of the roots, water thor- 

 oughly and cover the ground with a mulch of straw. 

 Most of the plants so treated will start a new and vig- 

 orous growth and give most satisfactory returns. 



Fruit at least expenditure of labor. — When this is 

 the great desideratum, many growers omit the hotbed 

 and even the pricking out, sowing the seed as earl\ 

 as they judge the plants will be safe from frost, and 

 broadcast, either in cold-frames or in uncovered beds, 

 at the rate of 50 to 150 to the square foot and trans- 

 planting directly to the field. Or they may be advan- 

 tageously sown in broad drills either by the use of the 

 pepper-box arrangement suggested on page 60, or a 

 garden drill adjusted to sow a broad row. In Mary- 

 land and the adjoining states, as well as in some places 

 in the West, most of the plants for crops for the can- 

 ners are grown in this way and at a cost of 40 cents 

 or even less a 1,000. The seed should be sown so that 

 it will be from 34 to ^ inch apart and the plants 

 thinned as soon as they are up so that they will be 

 at least ^ inch apart. Where seed is sown early with 

 no provision for protection from the frost it is always 

 well to make other sowings as soon as the last begins 

 to break ground in order to furnish reserve plants, if 

 the earlier sown lots be destroyed by frost. Others 



