CHAPTER XXXIII. 



THE TOMATO. 



TOMATO OR LOVE APPLE. Lycopcrsicum esculentum. 

 French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese, tomate ; Dutch, tomaat , 

 Italian, porno d'oro. 



The tomato is one of the most popular, prolific, and profitable 

 of California vegetables. It is grown everywhere during the local 

 occurrences of the frost-free period, and in our thermal situations 

 the fruit can be gathered all the year. The earliest fruit in our 

 local markets and the earliest shipments to the east are gathered 

 from vines which have continued growth from the previous sum- 

 mer and autumn, and, encountering no killing frost, are able to 

 fruit through the winter months. Favorable places in the Cahuenga 

 valley, near Los Angeles, are best known for this winter crop, 

 though it can be expected in similarly protected places in several 

 of the southern coast counties. The winter-grown fruit is, of 

 course, inferior to the summer and fall crop, though it is excellent 

 enough to command high prices for table use until the earliest 

 yield from spring plantings is to be had. When this new crop 

 comes in, the fruit from the hold-over plants becomes cheaper, but 

 is still marketed until the new crop becomes abundant. In this 

 way one year's plants in southern thermal situations lap over upon 

 the yield of the following year in the earliest interior sections at 

 the north, and the tomato supply from open air plants is continuous 

 throughout the year, though the supply regions are hundreds of 

 miles distant from each other. The fact that the north produces 

 earlier spring tomatoes from new plants than the south is difficult 

 for distant students to realize. It is conditioned upon ocean in- 

 fluences and local topography, which at the south prevent frosts 

 which winter-kill the old plants at the north, arid at the same time 

 postpone spring heat at the south, which is attained earlier in shel- 

 tered places in the interior at the north from which ocean influences 

 are excluded. There are places in the interior at the south, east 

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