SOME NOTES ON TOMATOES. 137 



Maryland aloue there are as many as twelve thousand acrea 

 devoted to this one crop, while in New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio, 

 Indiana, and Illinois, the crop is of special importance. 



By far the larger portion of the area devoted to this crop is 

 employed in supplying fruit for the canning factories, and it is 

 this demand of the canneries which, more than any other, haa 

 given the great impetus to tomato culture. The credit of 

 introducing canned tomatoes as an article of trade is due to INIr. 

 Harrison W. Crosby, who made his first venture in 1848, while 

 steward of Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania. There wa& 

 a ready demand for the goods, and with increased supply and 

 improved machinery, the cost has been reduced from fifty cents 

 per can, in 1848, to seven cents at the present time.^ With 

 this reduced cost, the output of the factories has increased to an 

 almost incredible extent. The total output for 1894 was nearly 

 six million cases of two dozen cans each, as compared with less 

 than three million in 1887.- 



Classification and History. — Our garden varieties of tomatoes 

 belong to two distinct species — Lycojjersicum pimpinelUfolium, 

 Dunal, and Lycopersicuvi esculentum Miller. The former is 

 represented in the garden by the "Currant," or " German Raisin " 

 Tomato, which is of weak spreading habit, with small thin foliage 

 and very delicate flowers, arranged in two ranks on a long raceme. 

 The whole aspect of the plant is delicate, and the long racemes of 

 fruit are not unlike clusters of currants. This species is found 

 wild in Peru and Brazil, and but little is known of its history. It 

 has not been modified by domestication, and probably has not 

 been long under cultivation. The chief value of this species, 

 aside from its use as an ornamental plant, and to a limited extent 

 for preserves, is in the breeding of new types, as I shall suggest 

 in another connection. 



Lycopersicuni esculentum, the ordinary tomato, is undoubtedly a 

 native of Peru, but is spontaneous or indigenous throughout 

 Mexico, and as far north as Texas and California, in a form 

 closely approaching the Cherry tomato of the gardens. So far as 

 we know, it was first cultivated in the south of Europe. It is- 



1 Am. Grocer, Jan. 11, 1893. 



2 Ibid, Jan. 9, 1895. 



