352 The Profitable Culture of Vegetables. 



to the total returns obtained from the crop. No fruit which is 

 not fully-developed (and mere size is no criterion of this) should 

 be taken in-doors for ripening, as although immature ones may . 

 colour they do so with a tough shrivelled skin and are really 

 useless. The green fruit may be ripened in the dark, in boxes 

 or trays or on benches, in a temperature of about 50 degrees : 

 it also ripens very well when packed in sawdust or peat dust. 



Extra Early Tomatoes from the Open. The foregoing in- 

 structions are all concerned with the main-crop, but where 

 convenience exists for protecting earlier-sown plants so that 

 they may go out at the beginning of June with a bunch of fruit 

 already set and swelling, it is quite possible to obtain ripe 

 Tomatoes from the open-air before the middle of July. For 

 this purpose seed should be sown about the middle of February, 

 all the previous instructions being carefully followed and care 

 being taken to keep the plants steadily moving, with a gentle 

 bottom heat until the beginning of May. Of course trans- 

 planting must be done earlier, and the plants must go at least 

 6in. apart when transplanted the second time. 



Strong plants may also be set out early in May with a little 

 warm manure under the roots and protected overhead by 

 cloches; each cloche rests on three sticks standing 1ft. or so 

 out of the ground, with notches on the inner edge, 2in. apart, 

 like the teeth of a saw. As the plant grows the cloche is raised 

 on the notches, and is removed altogether early in June. 



Varieties: The large number of varieties of Tomatoes is 

 bewildering to the grower who is inexperienced in their culture. 

 Those claimed as especially suitable for open-air culture are 

 certainly fewer in number, but the writer having experimented 

 over a number of years by growing most of the better-known 

 indoor varieties in the open-air, under both favourable and 

 adverse conditions, has invariably found that the so-called 

 open-air varieties are neither earlier, hardier, nor more prolific 

 than most of the indoor sorts, whilst they are very much 

 inferior in shape and appearance. Many persons appear to 

 think and act as though open-air Tomatoes must of necessity 

 be a rough coarse product, and this notion appears to in- 

 fluence the manner of placing the fruit on the market But it 

 is all a great mistake Tomatoes grown in the open-air, when 



