168 



tJLEANiNGS lis J3EE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



tablets? Now, suppose Ihe case that j'ou mentiou 

 on pag-e 913— a limited number of queen-cells on 

 band, which must he given to the colonics which 

 have been gueeuless the longest. The large date 

 stands out conspicuous on your slates, so that you 

 heed not " strain or squint the eyes, as the slates on 

 the cover are examined one by one," but it takes 

 time to go from one to another, even if you can see 

 those large dates ten feet away; and before you 

 have had time to examine half a dozen I will open 

 to the page of memoranda and tell at a glance 

 which hive or hives in four apiaries have been 

 longest queenless. Now, if, after what I've said, 

 you will fetill keep on using tablets, I'll— think just 

 as much of you as ever. C. C. MiXjLEK. 



Marengo, 111. 



Now look here, friend C. C. If you keep 

 0:1 using your record-book, I am going to 

 think just as much of you as ever, and — yes, 

 1 will go a little further— I shall think a lit- 

 tle more of you than I did before, and also 

 of the other friends wlio use tlie books, for I 

 see more reason for their use than I did. I 

 presume one reason why I dislike a record- 

 book is, that so much of my work is among 

 books and records that I become so thorougli- 

 ly tired out and exhausted in heing obliged 

 to consider them, it is a relief to me to 

 throw them away and get out into the open 

 air. You see, "circumstances alter cases. 

 Now, I think tliat, even if 1 used a book— 

 and you give us some very good reasons for 

 so doing — I would have the slates also. 

 Even if you have a book, you have to have 

 numbers on your hives ; for why don't these 

 same mischievous spirits that lurk around 

 your hives scratch off the numbers just to 

 bother you V 



^ I ^1 



IMPROVING TOMATOES. 



THE MIKADO; SOME VERV VALUABLE SUGGES- 

 TIONS FROM W. J. GREEN, IN REGARD TO IM- 

 PROVING VEGETABLES IN GENERAL. 



fRIEND ROOT:— I did not mean to be under- 

 stood as saying that the Mikado, or any other 

 variety of tomato, can not be improved by 

 selection, but that I think there is a limit be- 

 yond which we can not go. My belief is based 

 partly on my own experience and partly on the ex- 

 perience of others. So far as I am aware, all of the 

 smooth-fruited sorts were such from the beginning. 

 They may have originated by crossing, but when 

 discovered were smooth, and by selection were in- 

 creased in size. Mr. Livingston worked for some 

 time to make rough sorts smooth, but met with no 

 success. The Acme, and, ifi fact, all of his varieties, 

 were smooth from the start; but by selection he 

 Increased the size and earliness. If anyone has 

 succeeded, by selecting the smoother specimens 

 from fruit of the rough sort, I should like to hear 

 of it. I am aware that varieties may be and have 

 been Improved by selection; but that any rough- 

 fruited sort has been made perfectly smooth by 

 this method 1 am inclined to doubt, although it may 

 have been done. 



It is not the office of selection to change types, 

 but rather to fix and perpetuate such as seem de- 

 sirable. Unless there is a tendency to vary in the 

 direction toward which we are working, we soon 

 come to a stand and are obliged to resort to some 



other means. If we find that a variety shows little 

 or no tendency to vary in a desired direction, we 

 may possibly cause the wished-for variation by 

 crossing. The upright, or tree tomato, is quite late, 

 and the fruit verj' irregular; but the plant is of a 

 dwarf upright habit, which for some reasons makes 

 it very desirable. 



Mr. Gofif, of the New York station, crossed this 

 and some of our common sorts, and has succeeded 

 in getting an early, smooth-fruited variety, with 

 the upright habit. I will not venture to say that 

 he could not have accomplished this by selection 

 alone, but it seems improbable, for the reason that 

 the habit or character of the tree tomato was so 

 strongly fixed that it showed little or no signs of 

 variation toward smoothness and earliness. The 

 crossing broke up this fixedness of character; and 

 from the varieties that appeared, one was chosen 

 and its character fixed by selection. Usually we 

 want fixedness of character in a variety, but vve 

 maybe baffled in our efforts to improve a variety 

 because of this fixedness. 



The Mikado is not a hopeless subject; but my 

 plan is to cross it with one of the smooth varie- 

 ties; and yet there is only one chance in a thousand 

 that this course will give the desired results, for we 

 knovv so little about heredity in plants that it is 

 impossible to say what variety to cross upon it. 

 We already have two distinct smooth-fruited va- 

 rieties having the same general appearance of 

 plant as the Mikado. One has fruit like the Acme, 

 and the other like the Perfection. Both have 

 smaller fruit than the Mikado, but are quite equal 

 to it in vigor and productiveness. I regard them 

 as more promising than the Mikado, but my ex- 

 pectations may not be realized. You can hardly 

 have had the true King Humbert, since it is quite 

 smooth with us. The prices named that we obtained 

 for tomatoes were for 1886. This is a hard market 

 in which to sell rough tomatoes. W. J. Green. 



Columbus, Ohio. 



Many tlianks, friend G. You give us an 

 insight into tliis matter of improving on our 

 fruits and vegetables that I confess is new 

 to me, and it may not only save myself but 

 hundreds of others much "useless labor. I 

 am very much obliged to you for having 

 gone over the matter until it is evidently 

 plain to us all. In saying we have two dis- 

 tinct varieties having the same general ap- 

 pearance as the Mikado, do you mean that 

 tliese two are the Acme and Perfection V 

 The smaller fruit would be a great objection 

 with us ; and on our soil we have never 

 found any thing tlutt had the vigor and pro- 

 ductiveness of the Mikado. In fact, we get 

 about as many bushels of smooth ones as 

 from any other plant, with the rough ones 

 thrown in. If you can get some seeds of the 

 King Humbert tliat are round and smooth, 

 1 shall be glad indeed to get them. Ours 

 were purchased of Rawson ; but I do not 

 remember to have seen a single tomato like 

 tliose pictured in his catalogue. They were 

 oblong, like an egg, it is true ; but instead 

 of being round they were cornered, as it 

 were. A good many were also inclined to 

 be double, or partly double. While they 

 were not lobed, like many of our common 

 tomatoes, tliey were irregular in shape, no 

 two being alike. I notice that a good many 

 of our agricultural papers of late advise 



