172 



TOMATO. 



sq. ft., and thought it a safer plan, as a dead plant meant 

 less loss. My judgment would be that your plan would 

 require much more labor in setting and caring for the 

 plants, and in practice we rarely lost a plant. When I 

 commenced forcing tomatoes I found that the price was 

 extremely low until the last of December, but now the 

 price is good in November. Prices have varied in the 

 past two years from 7 cts. to 50 cts. per Ib. An aver- 

 age price during December, January, February and 

 March has been about 30 cts. to 35 cts., I think." 



" We plant our benches with tomatoes from 3-in. pots 

 along in January and February as carnation stock is 

 ready, growing them along at carnation temperature until 

 we have taken off the last crop of carnation cuttings ; 

 then we give a little more heat, and have a crop of to- 

 matoes about the last of May, through June, and have 

 them all off early in July. We have generally had an 

 average of 6 to 6% Ibs. per plant. There is much varia- 

 tion in average price, according to time we get the main 

 crop on, from, I suppose, 10 cts. to 15 cts. per Ib." 



"Our experience with tomatoes extends only with one 

 house and for one season. They were in for six months 

 and one week. We sold 2,669 Ibs. ; gross receipts, 

 $598.72, or an average of 22^ cts. per Ib. ; variety, 

 Lorillard ; house, 100x20 ft." 



"We grow tomatoes only as a second crop in spring, 

 bringing them in about the first of May and continuing 

 through June. From two houses (20x115 ft. and 

 20x100 ft.) we picked 3,500 Ibs of fruit, which brought 

 an average price of 12 cents per pound." 



Varieties. We have forced Dwarf Champion, Loril- 

 lard, Ignotum, Ithaca, Golden Queen, Golden Sunrise, 

 Volunteer, Beauty, Potato Leaf, and others. Of these, 

 the Dwarf Champion is least satisfactory. It does not 

 grow high or free enough to allow of convenient train- 

 ing, and the fruit is small and ripens slowly. Among 



