166 TOMATO. 



by some stimulating influence which it may have upon 

 the pericarp itself, is well known as a scientific fact. If 

 I have interpreted these experiments correctly, they mean 

 that a part, at least, of the smallness and perhaps all of 

 the one-sidedness of house tomatoes are due to insuffi- 

 cient pollination, and that it will pay the grower in mid- 

 winter to pollinate by hand and to exercise pains to ap- 

 ply an abundance of pollen over the whole surface of the 

 stigma. This conclusion is further emphasized by the ex- 

 periment which I have already reported (page 162), in 

 which the fruits upon jarred plants (and which undoubt- 

 edly received comparatively little pollen) were smaller 

 than those which were hand-pollinated. It is possible 

 that the same principle can be applied to some other 

 fruits, and our experiments with other plants in this di- 

 rection have already been considerable. 



The development of the hard and seedless part of the 

 small tomato (Fig. 57) is perhaps the most interesting 

 feature of the experiment from a scientific point of view. 

 This part must have developed because of some entirely 

 secondary stimulus of the pollen upon the pericarp, or 

 else because of the stimulus afforded by the growth of 

 the seeds in the other half; if neither of these proposi- 

 tions is true, it must follow that seedless tomato fruits 

 may develop without any aid of pollination whatever. 

 In any case, the query is raised if it will ever be possi- 

 ble to grow perfectly seedless tomatoes. We have al- 

 ready grown them, but can make no definite report 

 upon the subject. 



Second crop. The crop from the one or two or three 

 trained shoots of house tomatoes does not exhaust the 

 vitality of the plant ; consequently when the crop is well 

 along, one or two new shoots may be trained out from 

 near the base of the plant to produce a second crop. If 

 the plant is carrying a load of fruit when these second 

 shoots are being trained, liquid manure should be given 

 once or twice a week, or a fresh mulch of old manure 



