TOMATO VARIETIES. 349 



ticed, but application of water which does not wet the sur- 

 face under the plants is preferred. 



Picking Tomatoes. Tomatoes for shipping should al- 

 ways be picked right. For such purpose the fruit should 

 be picked when slightly blushed, not by squeezing or 

 pulling. Encircle it with all the fingers and twist care- 

 fully, leaving the stem on the vine, or rub it afterward, 

 if it parts from the vine. Do not leave the stem end on 

 the fruit. Pick in shallow boxes, not in deep pails or bas- 

 kets, and use two receivers ; one for perfect fruit, the other 

 for culls. Do not handle the fruit roughly, even if it 

 seems very firm. 



Yield. With all conditions favorable, tomatoes make a 

 very large return. Twelve and a half to fifteen tons of 

 marketable tomatoes have been gathered as an average 

 per acre from large tracts in Alameda county. The largest 

 specimen of which the writer has record was grown in Cal- 

 averas county, with the following dimensions: circumfer- 

 ence, twenty-two and one-half inches ; diameter at widest 

 place, eight inches; weight, four and one-half pounds. 

 Mr. Ira W. Adams reports that he grew one year one hun- 

 dred and thirty-six pounds of ripe tomatoes from one vine, 

 and when the frost came picked thirty-four pounds of 

 green ones. This vine covered a space of nearly eight feet 

 square ; it grew on the edge of a ditch used for running 

 water to blackberry vines. It was an instance of ample 

 irrigation by seepage. 



Varieties. California grows all the many improved to- 

 matoes with which American seedsmen have enriched our 

 vegetable list, and new varieties should always be looked 

 for in California seedsmen's catalogues. They always 

 offer choice yellow varieties for preserving. Varieties, 

 which include those commercially most prominent, are as 

 follows : 



Sparks Earliana : very early, tall growing; fruit large, 

 smooth, scarlet ; flesh deep red, solid. 



Chalk's Early Jewel: nearly as early; fruit large. 



