73o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
October 7, 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
Some New Tomatoes. —This is, so far, 
an unexpectedly good season for tomatoes. 
The weather conditions that favor Melon 
blight appear usually to promote fungus 
tomato troubles, but with the exception of 
rot of ripe fruit from too much rain our 
plants are vigorous and extremely produc¬ 
tive. Even the early kinds continue to 
grow and fruit better than for several 
previous years. More new varieties, or 
at least new names, are brought forward 
each season than can be tested in any 
but the most extensive commercial trial 
grounds. We grow a few of the most 
promising new introductions each year. 
Dreer’s Earliest Cluster.— This if in¬ 
deed an extra early kind. Our plants 
ripened their first fruits six days before 
Earliana, set at the same time. The 
plants are rapid and strong in growth and 
are still in good vigor, September 23- We 
did not record the date in July on which 
we gathered the first ripe fruits, but they 
came before any other kind except Quar¬ 
ter-Century, the plants of which had de¬ 
veloped clusters before planting out. The 
tomatoes were of very good size, fairly 
smooth, and colored bright fed all over. 
They were carried in clusters of eight to 
10 . The quality of the ripe fruits suited 
us better than any of the very early kinds. 
If we grew early tomatoes for market we 
should be inclined to put in a good 
breadth of Dreer’s Earliest Cluster. 
Livingston's Globe. —The seeds of this 
novelty were first offered last Spring at 
the unusually high price of 20 cents the 
packet of 40 seeds. Germination was 
slow, scarcely half of the seeds in our 
trial lot coming up. The plants seemed 
at first weak and tardy in growth, but 
after planting out developed rapidly into 
strong and productive specimens. Two 
of the earliest fruits, from the same clus¬ 
ter, reduced in size, are shown in Fig. 311, 
page 727. The larger one is quite globu¬ 
lar, while the smaller was much elongat¬ 
ed in form, and contained no seeds. Seeds 
are few and small during the whole bear¬ 
ing season, but were noticeably scarce in 
the early fruits. The midseason and later 
tomatoes are large, round and smooth, 
firm fleshed and meaty- The color is 
purplish rose—a tint not at all popular in 
our markets—and the flavor rather in¬ 
sipid. Those who object to the usual 
acidity of tomatoes are likely to favor the 
quality of this one. The plants are very 
productive after becoming established, and 
doubtless the variety will be appreciated 
for home consumption in many quarters. 
During rainy weather the ripening fruits 
crack readily. This peculiarity and the 
dull coloring do not recommend it for 
market in this locality. It is, however, a 
distinct and meritorious tomato, well 
worth cultivating in the home garden. 
Thorburn’s 1903.—This is a vigorous 
and productive tomato; free growing in 
plant and large in fruits, which are col¬ 
ored uniformly bright brick-red, occasion¬ 
ally with some russet about the stem end. 
They are smooth, solid and of fine quality. 
The skin is velvety like that of the Peach 
tomato. It is not an early sort, but ma¬ 
tures an immense midseason and late crop. 
The plants should have a fair amount of 
room for development. We have grown 
this reliable tomato two years with much 
satisfaction. 
Law Suits About Tomatoes- —Early 
tomatoes have been a fairly profitable crop 
hereabouts for several years, but owing to 
repeated rainy Summers the main crop 
and cannery plantings have turned out 
unsatisfactory results. Contract prices 
for cannery tomatoes have advanced from 
$7 to $8 the ton, with fewer planters each 
season. Although the plants grow unus¬ 
ually well this year the excessive humid¬ 
ity has caused much rot in the fruits, stif¬ 
fening the regular market demand. Can¬ 
nery growers, finding they can get a bet¬ 
ter price for their tomatoes than the can¬ 
neries give, feel inclined to sell to other 
buyers, and some of the canning com¬ 
panies have gone into court and secured 
injunctions to prevent their growers from 
disposing of any portion of their crop to 
outsiders. This is a perfectly justifiable 
course, as the growers expect the canner¬ 
ies to pay the agreed price even if mar¬ 
ket quotations should sink much lower 
than the amount per ton named in the 
contract, but the conditions that have im¬ 
pelled these lawsuits are quite unprece¬ 
dented in this locality. 
New Phlox Drummondii, “Sirius.”— 
Few annual flowering plants have varied 
more under cultivation than Drummond s 
Phlox. Discovered in Texas in 1835, it 
soon took rank among the most popular 
garden flowers, and has been assiduously 
cultivated up to the present time. There 
is now a great range of brilliant color¬ 
ing and many odd variations in habit of 
plant and form of flower, some varieties 
having the corolla cut into several sharp 
star-like points. Others grow in compact 
ball-like form, and make beautiful pot 
plants. The best garden varieties are in¬ 
cluded in the Grandiflora section, with 
broad, round flowers, growing a foot or 
more high. The colors range from pure 
white through every shade of red and 
violet to deep crimson and brilliant scar¬ 
let, often with contrasting throats or 
“eyes.” There are also shades of soft 
yellow and chamois. Novelties in this 
section are rare, the desirable colors hav¬ 
ing been so well worked out and fixed 
by generations of careful selection that we 
planted seeds of “Sirius,” first offered 
this year, with little confidence of grow¬ 
ing anything distinct from the meritori¬ 
ous old kinds- Sirius, however, proves 
a very charming addition to our list of 
annuals. The plants are low and com¬ 
pact, blooming early and with great free¬ 
dom. The flowers are of medium size, 
velvety salmon-rose in color, shading 
lighter toward the centers, with light 
bluish or rather ash-gray eyes, one of the 
most refined bits of coloring we have seen 
among flowers. The type seems well 
fixed; all the plants, 22 in number, grown 
from one packet of seeds producing uni¬ 
form flowers. 
The Ward Blackberry. — Plants set in 
April, 1904, fruited this year with consid¬ 
erable freedom. The canes made a short 
and sturdy growth, and were not in the 
least injured by the very severe Winter. 
The berries are large, jet black and of 
best quality, with small, tender core. The 
market value of the berries has been 
demonstrated in this county by several 
years’ experience. They carry well, not 
changing color after picking, and always 
bring top prices. We like the sturdy 
growth, healthy foliage and freedom from 
suckers. If the plants are able to resist 
disease, of which they have shown no 
trace, there is little doubt Ward will take 
place among our best commercial black¬ 
berries. w. v- F. 
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