VEGETABLES, FRUITS AND FLOWERS 



IN THE EDITORS GARDENS 



HE NEW TOMATOES. — One of 

 g novelties 



the most strik 

 in tomatoes recently intro- 

 duced is Henderson 400, 

 now being sent out as Pon- 

 derosa. It is truly ponder- 

 ous in stalk, foliage and 

 fruit. We grew some 

 plants from seed and set 

 ■them out with other varieties in the ordinary way. 

 We also received some plants from the introducer ; 

 the latter arrived in bad order, all broken to pieces 

 and apparently worthless. We managed to find 

 two sound tip-ends in the lot. A handful of cotton 

 "batting was wrapped around their butt-ends, and 

 they were placed in an ordinary glass tumbler, with 

 water enough to saturate the cotton. The tumbler 

 -was placed in a sunny window, and forgotten for 

 nearly two weeks. The cuttings were then found to 

 be well rooted, and were at once planted out, each 

 by the side of an eight-foot pole. They were kept 

 irimmed to single stalks and trained to the poles. 

 By September they had reached the top, and before 

 frost two feet or more of drooping growth had been 

 added. 



The few fruits were of monstrous size. One of the 

 ■clusters is illustrated on next page ; its weight was con- 

 siderably over three pounds, but we had single speci- 

 mens weighing much more than any of these three. In 

 ■solidity the fruit leaves nothing to be desired. The seed- 

 cavities are small and often hardly noticeable, and the 

 seeds few in number. Twelve bushels, it is said, give 

 •only one pound of seed. Quality good ; shape reason- 

 ably smooth and uniform ; color a pinkish red. It has 

 one great fault outside of its lack of productiveness — it 

 does not ripen up well and evenly, even if bagged. A 

 specimen may be dead ripe at the apex, and still green 

 around the stem end. It also cracks badly. In spite of 

 all that it is an interesting variety, and we shall plant it 

 again. Ponderosa has some similiarity to Mansfield's 

 Tree, Anna Dine and Ruby Queen ; but it is by far the 

 best of that type. 



The most noteworthy of the other novelties of i8gi are 

 Red Potato-Leaf, Thorburn Long-Keeper, Bon Ton, 

 Ithaca, Stone and Potomac. All these are good and 

 reliable. Red Potato-Leaf is evidently nothing more 

 or less than a red sport of the older purplish variety of 

 the same name. Thorburn Long- Keeper has pleased us 

 much. It is perfect in form, and ripens up evenly and 

 beautifully. Color a deep purple ; flesh solid and qual- 



ity excellent. We shall give it another trial on a larger 

 scale. Ithaca and Bon Ton also ripened up well, and 

 did not develop any serious fault. Potomac is regular 

 in form and firm in texture, with small seed-cavities. It 

 was sent out under the claim that the bulk of the fruit 

 would ripen together, thus being of special value for 

 canning. To judge from its behavior on our grounds the 

 past season, the claim has some foundation. 



Our favorites for general purposes are Matchless and 

 Ignotum ; and if every seed of all others of the same 

 type, as Red Apple, Red Cross, Brandywine 45, McCul- 

 lom's Hybrid, Early Ohio, Stone, etc., although all good, 

 were lost, the injury to the American gardener would 

 hardly be worth mentioning, so long as the two first 

 named were saved to cultivation. 



Do Tomatoes Mix ? — Our last season's experience 

 teaches forcibly that it is not safe to save specimen fruits 

 for seed from a patch containing more than one variety, 

 when pure seed of any particular variety is wanted. 

 We have always made it a practice to save seed of a 

 number of varieties for planting the following season, 

 rather than depend on seedsmen for a new supply ; and 

 we thought we were reasonably safe in doing this, as we 

 have seldom noticed crosses among our plants. It was 

 therefore a surprise to see in King of the Earlies from 

 our own seed of 1890 an endless variety of shapes and 

 sizes, with scarcely a half-dozen plants of the true type. 

 Of course, the provocation for the production of crosses 

 the season before was great, as we had 30 varietie.^ of 

 6 to 18 plants each in the lot. 



Lessons in Thinning Fruits. — A more impressive 

 lesson of the value of a thorough thinning of the tree- 

 fruits could not have been easily given than that fur- 

 nished by last season's crop in the apple orchards of the 

 whole district. The bloom on most varieties was not 

 over-abundant, or was damaged by late spring frosts. 

 When the fruit was set it appeared so scattering that 

 everybody estimated about one-quarter of an average 

 crop. As late even as the end of July the general opin- 

 ion was that the apple crop would not exceed one-third 

 of the average. The half-grown specimens on the trees 

 then looked somewhat far apart ; but they kept on grow- 

 ing larger and finer than in many years, and they filled 

 the intervening spaces on the limbs. When the time of 

 picking came, the trees appeared well loaded with large 

 fine apples. The outcome was that our own crop, in- 

 stead of being 20 or 30 barrels, as at first estimated, con- 

 sisted of 80 barrels or more. As the actual yield of the 

 orchards in the entire district exceeded the earlier esti- 

 mates in just about the same ratio, the crop turned out 

 to be not less than two-thirds of an average, and the 

 fruit was of unusual size, form and coloring. 



