86 THE SEED-GROWER. 
Middle West. Seed yield in a favorable season is from 
200 to 800 pounds per acre; prices paid to growers rule 
from twelve to fifteen cents per pound for summer 
varieties, twenty to twenty-five cents for winter sorts. 
TOMATO. 
Cultivation of this vegetable for seed is same as for 
table use, which being so well known, general directions 
for growing a crop are deemed superfluous here. But 
plants intended for seed are usually set out four feet 
each way, and good, rich soil and high cultivation are 
necessary. 
Stock seed should be saved carefully, not only from 
perfectly ripe fruit, but from the earliest, largest and 
best-formed specimens, which besides being true to 
variety as to color and shape, are perfectly smooth, 
solid and have ripened close to the core. Such stock 
seed has a market value of $10 perpound. The com- 
mercial seed crop should, however, while growing, be 
gone over and rogued carefully. Finally when the 
ripe tomatoes are gathered, they must be sorted, and all 
rejected which are not true or characteristic of the 
variety. 
To be in prime, marketable condition, commercial 
seed must be bright in appearance; and to have such 
real bright-looking seed, fruit should be gathered just 
ripe, not over or under ripe, and must not remain in 
fermentation longer than is absolutely necessary to 
loosen the gum which clings to the seed. Seed saved 
from over-ripe fruit is harder to clean. 
Fermentation and Washing.—Fruit is first ground 
up ina machine similar to the one used for grinding 
cucumbers, the wire reel taking out large pieces of pulp. 
The seed with its remaining pulp is then poured into 
