238 TOMATOES. 



a low figure, at a time wlien sound ones are bringing 

 high rates. Again, a great deal depends upon the 

 skill of the cultivator in preparing his ground and 

 managing his plants, so as to bring the crop forward 

 a week or ten days earlier than the main crop from 

 the same vicinity. We have known of numerous 

 instances where two gardeners in the same neigh- 

 borhood would grow a certain number of baskets of 

 Tomatoes every year ; one of them, by skill and 

 close application to his business, would make from 

 an acre, from five to seven hundred dollars, while 

 the other would not make more than two hundred 

 and fifty dollars. Every intelligent gardener knows 

 the importance, in Tomato culture, of having strong, 

 stout, and stocky plants when the time arrives for 

 transplanting into the open ground. In fact, where 

 this part of the business is overlooked or neglected, 

 it would be wiser and in every way better for the 

 farmer or gardener to devote his land to Potatoes or 

 Corn, instead of Tomatoes. 



The consumption of Tomatoes is, of course, im- 

 mense ; but it makes a very decided difference to 

 the grower whether he has a term of one, t^vo, or 

 three weeks in the Tomato season, when his fruit will 

 bo in brisk demand at prices ranging from three 

 to four dollars per basket of twenty quarts ; or he is 

 compelled to commence selling at fifty cents per 

 basket, on a falling market, which will soon reach 

 ten cents. At these low rates, the demand is not as 

 good as when Tomatoes were bringing three dollars 

 a basket. 



Twelve or fourteen days in the date of ripening, 



