TOMATOES 15 



prepared. Our own favourite mixture consists of equal parts 

 chopped loam and cow manure, with bone meal. We love to 

 watch the young white roots stealing up like a silent army and 

 taking possession of this new soil ; they embrace it, they devour 

 it with gusto, and the sight is ocular demonstration of the fact 

 that the plants are thriving a veritable signal of ." all's well." 

 But even with this, such are the demands that there comes a 

 time when distress signals are hung out and the plants show 

 signs of exhaustion, so that it is necessary to resort to some more 

 drastic effort to maintain their dwindling energies. This can 

 best be done by MULCHING. Good fat cow manure or pig manure 

 are both excellent, containing salts which, conveyed by watering 

 to the roots, impart new vigour and vitality, sustaining the pro- 

 ductive capacities of the plants right up to the limit of their 

 growth and age. 



OVERFEEDING 



Overfeeding constitutes a very real danger at every stage of 

 the growth. It is more pronounced in its effects for evil than 

 semi-starvation. An underfed plant may remain in perfect 

 health, produce quite a number of well-set trusses of very 

 excellent fruit of improved flavour, but short of avoirdupois. 

 Quite a large number of the fruits would be undersized, and, since 

 tomatoes are sold entirely by weight, this would be a defect, 

 fatal as regards profits. But an overfed plant will not set 

 freely it drops many of its flowers, its energy is too great 

 and rushes past the trusses without assisting them. Its grossness 

 makes it susceptible to every disease and causes it to escape 

 none. It occupies inordinate space, and from first to last is an 

 unprofitable proposition. 



Further, overfeeding has a distinctly adverse influence on 

 quality and flavour. Overfed fruit is just a puffed-out bag of 

 watery matter, insipid to a degree, too soft to travel, abhorred 

 by the intelligent consumer. The most promising sample 

 ever grown would be spoilt in a week by overfeeding. But the 

 fruit of a semi-starved plant is solid and sugary, more a dessert 

 fruit than a salad or cooking vegetable. It is small, sweet, 

 and delicious, with very few seeds and practically no core. 



