UTAH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 133 
THE BREEDING OF CANNING TOMATOES. 
BY M. C. MERRILL AND T. H. ABELL, 
The tomato ( Zycopersicum esculentum Mill.) is of 
American origin. According to De Candolle it is prob- 
ably native of Peru. Having no name in the ancient 
languages of Asia and being introduced in cultivation 
in some of the Asiatic countries only within the past 
century or so, it is strikingly different from many of our 
food plants, which had their origin in southwestern Asia 
and have been generalty cultivated for thousands of 
years. 
Tho not known in Europe prior to the discovery of 
America, the tomato has’nevertheless been grown in the 
South and Central American countries for a long time. It 
was taken to Europe by the early Spanish explorers and 
soon spread thruout that continent. In 1596 the tomato 
was introduced into England where it was known for a 
long time as the “love-apple’, and was grown only for 
ornamental and medicinal purposes until well into the 
eighteenth century before being used as a vegetable. 
Under cultivation to-day there are many types of 
the tomato so different from each other that were it 
not known that they arose by variation under cultivation, 
botanists would undoubtedly place them under different 
species, as did Dunal, the great early authority on the 
genus Lycopersicum, who recognized ten species of this 
genus. At the present time for instance, there are cer- 
tain sub-species or botanical varieties under esculentum 
which botanists will not accept as species but which 
undoubtedly show more striking differences between 
themselves and the mother species than are to be found 
among some other groups of Lycopersicwm which are 
recognized as good species by botanists. Some of these 
sub- “species or botanical varieties are: 
