CHAPTER XXXIII. 

 THE TOMATO. 



TOMATO OR LOVE APPLE. Lycopersicum 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, and is by far the greatest of all the canned 

 product, as shown in Chapter I. 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 pre- 

 vious summer and autumn, and, encountering no killing frost, are 

 able to fruit through the early winter months. Favorable places 

 in the southern coast counties are best known for this winter crop. 

 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 situ- 

 ations continue production near to the yield of the following year 

 in the earliest interior sections at the north, and the tomato supply 

 from open air plants is almost continuous throughout the year, 

 though the supply regions are hundreds of miles distant from 

 each other. The fact that the North produces earlier spring to- 

 matoes from new plants than the south is difficult for distant stu- 

 dents to realize. It is conditioned upon ocean influences and local 

 topography, which at the South prevents frost which winter-kill 

 the old plants at the North, and at the same time postpone 

 spring heat at the South, which is attained earlier in sheltered 

 places in the interior at the North from which ocean influences 

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

 of the high mountain range, which should be earlier than either 

 the southern coast or the northern interior, but this theoretical ad- 

 vantage has not yet been realized in large production as high heat 

 seems to come on so soon after planting out in March that fruiting 

 is reduced. 



In the all-the-year California demand for the tomato, it is 

 necessary to bring some fruit from Mexico and from the forcing 

 houses of the southern states, and it is probable that more forcing 

 of tomatoes will be undertaken in this state in the future. It is a 

 question, however, whether we should take to forcing under glass 



