Unusual Tomatoes for Preserves and Pickles— By i. m. Angell, & 



OLD-TIME FAVORITES THAT ARE USUALLY PASSED OVER NOWADAYS IN FAVOR OF THE LARGER SALAD 

 SORTS, BUT WHICH ARE BETTER FOR COOKING AND PRESERVES BECAUSE THEY ARE STRONGER FLAVORED 



Photographs by the author and L. Barron 



A. HUNT through more than a dozen seed 

 catalogues last spring enabled us to 

 grow a strangely interesting collection of 

 fifteen different pickling or preserving to- 

 matoes. There was a good deal of fun and 

 curiosity in raising them and in testing the 

 fruits later. They are worth while only 

 for that reason; as salad tomatoes the or- 

 dinary kinds are of course much better, but 

 there is a richness of flavor in these small 

 currants and eggs that stands well the trials 



The best way to grow tomatoes for the amateur 

 with a small garden 



of cooking. For sauces these little fruits 

 are unsurpassed. 



Here is the full list: Yellow Cherry, 

 Red Cherry, Yellow Peach, Red Peach, 

 Yellow Pear, Red Pear, Yellow Plum, Red 

 Plum, White Apple, Red Currant, Husk, 

 Yellow Egg, Burbank Preserving, Large 

 Yellow, Diadem (streaked). 



A glance at the illustrations will show the 

 relative sizes of the various varieties. The 

 white dishes used being seven inches in 

 length. 



THE SMALLEST OF THE HOST 



The smallest fruit of all was the cur- 

 rant tomato, three-eighths of an inch in 

 diameter. It grows in long, slender, string- 

 like bunches similar to its namesake, a 



dozen or so to the stem and sometimes as 

 many as forty "strings" to a plant; a really 

 pretty object in the garden. A good-sized 

 Ponderosa tomato, the largest of the salad 

 kinds, placed beside a currant tomato shows 

 a surprising comparison. It is hard to be- 

 lieve that they are the same sort of vegetable . 

 This was the only one of the entire collection 

 that was not worth bothering with. It is too 

 small and too seedy to be seriously regarded. 

 The plants are somewhat different from the 

 common tomato, being more vine-like, with 

 delicate stems and foliage. 



The yellow cherry was next in size, three- 

 quarters of an inch in diameter. A teacup 

 will hold forty of these yellow cherries. They 

 are desirable plants for the children's garden. 

 Their small size, beautiful color and good 

 flavor would be appreciated by the younger 

 members of a family. We gathered nearly 

 two hundred from one plant. They grow in 

 many fruited clusters, as do all of these small 

 tomatoes. The red cherries are somewhat 

 larger than the yellow ones, being an inch in 

 diameter, but were not quite so attractive, 

 either in looks or flavor, as the yellow counter- 

 parts, although more productive. We picked 

 over 270 from one plant. 



The Burbank Preserving tomato grows in 

 thick-set clusters of small red fruit, the pro- 

 portions of the individual fruit are those of 

 the ordinary tomato, but the size is that of 

 the red-cherry tomato, or even smaller. The 

 clusters sometimes take the form of a bunch 

 of grapes. They lacked acid and were gen- 

 erally pronounced insipid; we did not like 

 them. Perhaps we did not get the best re- 

 sults from the plants, for the Cyclopedia 

 of American Horticulture speaks of "the 

 cherrylike, exquisite-flavored Burbank's Pre- 

 serving tomato." The plants belong to the 

 dwarf-growing type and were only one- 

 foot high when ordinary tomato vines had 

 made three feet of growth. The foliage is 

 strong, thick-set and somewhat like that of 

 a potato. 



Next larger in size are the "pear" and 

 "plum" sorts each of which is two inches 



or less in length. The kind advertised as 

 egg tomato seems, in every way, identical 

 with the plum. These are wonderfully pro- 

 lific; we counted 260 fruits on one plant. 

 The yellow plums are among the best flav- 

 ored of the small tomatoes, and the most used 

 for culinary purposes and as a fruit to eat out 

 of the hand. Pear tomatoes are attractive 

 in color, shape and flavor, but their hold on 

 the stem is so slight that they drop to the 

 ground when the plant is jarred. While 

 this makes them bothersome to gather, yet 

 they are productive enough to make up for 

 it. One plant yielded almost two hundred 

 pears. 



The Diadem tomato is peculiarly streaked 

 and blotched with yellow. It is meaty and 

 of good size and flavor, but its odd markings 

 seem to penetrate the skin ; the flesh adheres 

 tightly in the lighter places so that it is not 

 easily peeled. We had some of these eleven 

 inches in circumference. 



The white apple is a curious sort, round 

 and solid, with little acid, and practically 

 tasteless; and moreover it bore but a light 

 crop. The largest of all in this collection of 

 out -of -the common tomatoes was the Golden 

 Sunrise. This sometimes almost reached the 

 proportions of the giant Ponderosa. It has 

 a good flavor and for color and good even 

 appearance has never been surpassed by any 

 of the family that we have grown. One 

 good-sized fruit measured thirteen inches in 

 circumference. 



A GOOD DESSERT FRUIT 



As a dessert fruit, to be eaten out of hand 

 the peach tomato is by far the best. The 

 red sort has the shape, color, size and even 

 bloom of the real peach; the flavor is more 

 sweet and fruity than that of most of the to- 

 mato family. One great advantage is that 

 the skin, so tough in some kinds, is in these 

 very thin and tender, almost like a peach 

 skin. It has the reputation of being very 

 prolific; but ours did not bear more than a 

 hundred to a plant. It is spoken of by 

 others who have tried it as "firm and well- 



These small, old-time varieties are generally named from their shape. Egg The white apple tomato has so little acid as to be insipid, 

 tomatoes, o_ne and one-half inches long. Deficient in flavor crop. Fruit pale pinK, solid flesh 



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It bore a very light 



