Il6 TOMATO CULTURE 



exceeding 10 cents a pound. They secure from 75 

 to 250 pounds per acre, according to the variety and 

 crop, and the seedsmen pay them 40 cents to $i a 

 pound for it. Some of our more careful seedsmen 

 produce all the seed they use in this way ; others buy 

 of professional seed growers, who use more or less 

 carefully grown stock seed. In other cases when the 

 fruit is fully ripe it is gathered, and the seeds, pulp 

 and skins are separated by machinery ; the seed is s'old 

 to seedsmen, the pulp made into catsup, and only the 

 skins are thrown away. Still others get their supply 

 by washing out and saving the seed from the waste 

 of canneries. Such seed is just as good as seed saved 

 from the same grade of tomatoes in any other way, but 

 the fruit used by the canneries is, usually, a mixture 

 of different crops and grades, and even of different 

 varieties, and consequently the seed is mixed and en- 

 tirely lacking in uniformity and distinctness of type. 



Generally from 5 to 20 per cent, of the plants pro- 

 duced by seed as commonly grown either by the far- 

 mer himself or the seedsmen, though they may be 

 alike in more conspicuous characteristics, will show 

 varietal differences of such importance as to affect 

 more or less materially the value of the plant for the 

 conditions and the purposes for which it is grown. 

 In a book like this it is useless to attempt to give long 

 varietal descriptions even of the sorts commonly listed 

 by seedsmen, since such descriptions would be more 

 a statement of what the writer thought seed of that 

 variety should be rather than of what one would be 

 likely to receive under that name. 



