The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S, S. EATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., SEPTEMBER, 1879. 



Vol. XI. No. 9. 



Editorial. 



SOMETHING ABOUT TOMATOES. 



We are apt to think the tomato is a vege- 

 table, or fruit, that has only come into general 

 cullinary use within the last forty years or so; 

 but this is a grave mistake. So far as we are 

 able to localize the event, we verily believe 

 we saw both the tomato and the egg-plant 

 raised as a window pot-jilant, and in fruit — 

 as many as five and fifty years ago. The 

 first named had beautiful crimson fruit about 

 the size of an ox-heart cherry, and was called 

 a "Love-apple." The other had white fruit 

 about tlie size of a bantam's egg, and was 

 called, as it is now, the "Egg-plant." Some 

 went to the trouble of calling it the "Artificial 

 Egg," but there was nothing artificial about 

 it, it was natural. 



In Philip Miller's Gardener''s Dictionary, 

 published in London, and dedicated to Sir 

 Hans Sloan, in 1731, in reference to the 

 "Love-apple," [Lycopersicon) we quote the 

 following : "The Italians and Spaniards eat 

 these apples as we do cucumbers, with pepper, 

 oil and salt, and some eat them stewed in 

 sauce, &c., but considering their great mois- 

 ture and coldness, the nourishment they 

 afford must be bad. The iirst of these plants 

 is the sort directed for medicinal use by the 

 college in their dispensatory.'' 



By the "first," he means the yellow love- 

 apple ; for he describes what ho calls five 

 species, and distinguishes them by the form 

 and color of the fruit. 



Johnson, in his 6ardener''s Dictionary, pub- 

 lished in 1872, follows the same specific 

 nomenclature, but enumerates ten distinct 

 species ; the earlier ones of which were intro- 

 duced into England in 1596, as ornamental 

 plants. What Miller says about the cultiva- 

 tion of the tomato in 1731, contains all, and 

 much more, than Johnson says in 1872 ; and 

 at a more seasonable period we may give it to 

 the public, merely to show how little advance 

 we have made in 148 years. 



But now we have somewhat to say nearer 

 home. During the eight years of Jefferson's 

 Presidency, namely, from 1801 to 1809, he 

 kept a record of the fruit and vegetable 

 market of Washington city, carefully noting 

 down the date when each kind was placed on 

 market, how long it continued, and the date 

 when it was discontinued. It may seem 

 singular that the President of the United 

 States, and perhaps the greatest statesman 

 of the period, should give his attention to 

 such domestic details ; but so it is, in a tabu- 

 lated form in the first volume of his biography. 

 Amongst the vegetables enumerated he men- 

 tions tomatoes and egg-plants, as being sold 

 regularly during the period above named in 

 the AVashington market. To show what 

 kind of a vegetable market they had in Wasb- 

 iBgton, from 1801 to 1809, and that tomatoes 

 and egg-plants must have been cultivated for 

 culinary use, the kind of company they were 

 in may indicate that use. 



Lettuce, parsley, spinach, sprouts, corn- 

 salad, radishes, sorrel, asparagus, broccoli, 

 cucumbers, cabbages, cress, cauliflower, 

 turnips, Irish potatoes, corn, snaps, arti- 

 chokes, carrots, salsify, squashes, unids or 

 beans, beets, parsnips, tomatoes, lima beans, 

 endive, celery, egg-plants, mushrooms, melons 

 and watermelons. Of fruits, there were 

 pears, strawberries, currants, raspberries and 

 grapes. Perhaps apples, onions and peaches 

 may have been too common to mention. 

 This was from 70 to 78 years ago. Just when, 

 or by whom they were first eaten in Lancaster 

 county we have not the means of knowing, 

 but many are still living who well remember 

 the time when the tomato was not included 



in our edible vegetation, and even no one 

 dreamed it ever would become so general as 

 it has. We first tasted them in the summer 

 of 1832, anci we approached them very "gin- 

 gerly." Perhaps we would not have done so 

 then— for to us the odor of the plant was not 

 as "fragrant as peaches," but they had been 

 prepared by a little hand that was afterwards 

 laid in ouis, and has prepared them for us 

 from that period down to the present time, so 

 we could not refusi;. And since we have 

 mentioned iiau-hes in connection with the 

 subject, it reminds us that the generic term, 

 Lycopersicon, is a Greek compound, and liter- 

 ally means "wolf peach." (From lykos, a 

 wolf, and pcrsicon, a peach). It belongs to 

 the family SoLANACEyK, which also includes 

 the common potato, the egg-plant, the deadly 

 night-shade, the horse-nettle, the bitter-sweet, 

 the ground-cherry, apple of Peru, henbane, 

 jimson weed and the tobacco plant— not a 

 very edible family. The generic name is now 

 written Lyopersicum. The plant we cultivate 

 is said to have been introduced into England 

 from South America, which, if true, is 

 certainly very suggestive. It encourages us 

 to persevere in our attempts to acclimatize 

 foreign plants, fruits, &c. If we have suc- 

 ceeded in the peach, the cherry and the 

 tomato, who is prepared to say that we may 

 not succeed in other things, the Japanese per- 

 simmon for instance ? The tomato occupies 

 such an exalted position in culinary vegeta- 

 tion ; is so popular, so healthful, so widely 

 diffused, and has been so rapid in its increase 

 that it would be of importance to our next 

 decennial census to have a special column de- 

 voted to it alone in 1880. There is hardly a 

 family now so poor that it has not tomatoes 

 upon the table at least once every day while 

 they are in season, and they are so easily pre- 

 served by the canning process that many 

 families have them every day all the year 

 round, in some of their many forms of pre- 

 paration. Tomato stews, salads, pickels, pre- 

 serves, jellies, catsups, figs, wines, &c., are 

 leading household articles in many families 

 now, and we can hardly realize that five and 

 forty years ago they were almost unknown 

 for these purposes in Lancaster county ; and 

 to deprive us of them now, would be equiva- 

 lent to tearing up all our railroads, and going 

 back to stage coaches and Conestoga teams. 

 No grocery store is now considered complete, 

 without its stock of canned tomatoes. There 

 was another use of the tomato about forty 

 years ago in this country, which we had 

 almost forgptten, and to which Miller alludes 

 in the extract we have quoted. In a highly 

 concentrated or sublimated form, they were 

 used as medicine. Perhaps many of those 

 who have attained to fifty years, will be able 

 to recall the "tomato pills," "tomato tinc- 

 ture," and "tomato decoctions, "conspicu- 

 ously advertised in drug stores, with wreaths 

 of crimson fruit placarded on the boxes. But 

 as they grew into favor as an esculent, they 

 grew into disfavor as a medicine. 



SCIENCE, AND ITS RELATIONS TO 

 AGRICULTURE. 

 Many intelligent farmers are annoyed by 

 the term Science, and many of the illiterate 

 are absolutely horrified at it, and will have as 

 little to do with it as possible ; just as if they 

 were able to entirely ignore it, or annihilate 

 it, and act altogether independent of it. The 

 fact is. whether they have any knowledge of 

 it or not, whether they recognize it or not 

 when it is brought to their view, or whether 

 they acknowledge its presence in the various 

 phenomena of nature or not, cannot allect a 

 single principle in its domain, for it still 

 "marches along" as it marched from the bc- 

 giuuing of time, "when the morning stars 



sang together." No farmer can locate .and 

 lay ofi' into fields his farm, nor erect a barn, 

 nor hay nor wheat slack — and no farmer's 

 wife can bake a loaf of bread, make a pound 

 of soap, or a cake of cheese, without invoking 

 the aid of science, and this too whether they 

 understand its controling principles or not. 

 Science and her laws are as inseparable from 

 the domain of matter as a shadow is from its 

 substance, or as light and sound are from an 

 electrical concussion. Like truth, "The 

 eternal years of God are hers," and poor 

 feeble humanity can no more separate itself 

 from science and its ramifying influences, 

 than it can from the Creator of the universe, 

 whether it has a living faith in that Creator 

 or not. 



Science is only another name for knowledge, 

 and those to whom knowledge is distasteful of 

 course will have little sympathy with science. 

 But science does not only imply a knowledge 

 of the truth, but it also implies a systematic 

 arrangement of truths according to their 

 mutual relations to each other. Science, 

 however, only takes cognizance of truths that 

 are capable of being demonstrated on a mate- 

 rial plane. When truth leads beyond that, it 

 enters upon the domain of spirit, which, as it 

 is separated from matter by a discreet degree, 

 has only an abstract relation to the present 

 subject. AVhen St. Paul, in his mission to 

 the Athenians, observed an altar inscribed, 

 "To the unknown God," he gave utterance 

 to the famous enunciation, "lie whom you 

 ignorantly worship. Him declare I unto you. " 

 The mission of science to the physical realm 

 is of a like character. Its object is to instruct 

 people how to do that intelligently which 

 they otherwise do ignorantly. If a woman 

 happens to bake a good loaf of bread, make a 

 good pound of soap, or a good cake of cheese, 

 science will teach her how she accomplished 

 these achievements, and if she fails in these 

 it will point out wherein she failed. If a 

 farmer by superior skill has succeeded in pro- 

 ducing a good crop, erected a symmetrical 

 stack of hay or grain, or constructed healthful 

 and well-ventilated buildings, science will 

 illustrate to him the principles upon which 

 his success depended, and if he fails therein it 

 will admonish him of the physical laws he has 

 violated, and which involved his labors in 

 defeat. The whole domain of physical knowl- 

 edge, whether domestic, mechanical, mathe- 

 matical, agricultural, commercial, chemical 

 or professional, is included in the category of 

 science. It abjures all arbitrary signs and 

 seasons and plants itself fundamentally upon 

 principles that are synonoraous with truth, 

 and if its deductions seem to be erroneous, the 

 errors will not be found in the scientific prin- 

 ciples involved in the case, but in the inabil- 

 ity of the human mind to comprehend them, 

 or in their false application. 



The knowledges embraced by science are 

 many and diverse, some of them complex or 

 abtruse, and have only a remote relation to 

 the agricultural and domestic concerns of life; 

 and, although no single mind could expect to 

 grasp the whole— nor is it necessary that it 

 should— yet so far as any of its branches 

 relate to specific human avocations they ought 

 to become the subjects of thorough human 

 study. The agriculturalist should have a 

 knowledge of the chemical constitution of the 

 various soils, and how to supply any of the 

 fertilizing elements that may have become ex- 

 hausted, and also know what elements are 

 present in excess. Some farmers have a sort 

 of prejudice against scientific knowledge, 

 because they think it is only learned from 

 books, and they have a contempt for what 

 they call "book farming." If their illiterate 

 neighbor, after many years of patient and 

 careful experience, had discovered that 



