104 



TOMATOES FOR MARKET AND CANNING 



Mr. Cook: The average greenhouse grower in growing for the 

 cannery transplants only once. They do not ordinarily set over one 

 and three-quarters to two inches apart, many thousand not being 

 over one and one-half inches apart. This is much too close for the 

 growing of good plants. There is not one grower out of ten who 

 gives enough space. This, I think, is very important in making a 

 good crop of tomatoes. 



Question: What is the maximum length of plants? 



Mr. Cook: I like them about six inches high and stocky. 



Mr. Work : W^ould it be safe to say this about depth of planting : 

 Set to within two inches of the lowest leaves.'^ 



Mr. Cook: I think so. For early plants, do not set so deep. 

 The further down they are set, the more roots they will get. 



Question: Do you supply your own customers with plants this 



year? 



Mr. Cook: Some ask us to furnish them plants and we do so. 

 In contracting their tomatoes with us, they order the plants at the 

 same time, and we notify the greenhouses. I have eight hundred 

 fifty acres under contract at the present time. It is going to take 

 some three million plants. 



Question: Are you troubled with potato bugs? If so, what do 

 you do for them? 



Mr. Cook : iVbout all we have done is to spray for them. Where 

 they are quite bad, we think it is the best idea to send boys through 

 the field to pick them. If this is done, we are never bothered with 

 the younger slugs. 



Mr. Bronson: In raising tomato plants which are transplanted 

 only once, what price does the greenhouse man have to get to make 

 a paying proposition? 



Mr. Cook: I should think four dollars would be very good. 

 Some growers have a device that will make openings when pressed 

 into the soil. With this, they work very fast. 



Question: Would it be a paying proposition at three dollars? 

 That is the price for which the canning concerns have been furnishing 

 farmers plants in Orleans County. 



