364 
THE RURAL NEW-VORKEK 
March 0, 
Growing Early Tomatoes 
A * EXTENSIVE CROP.—Tomato 
growing for the Lancaster. Pa., mar¬ 
ket, by the Lancaster County truckers, is 
each season assuming larger propor¬ 
tions, and each season is instituting 
keener rivalry as to who shall be the first 
to market his crop, and reap the benefit 
of the high prices always awaiting the 
man who is ahead. The Lancaster Coun¬ 
ty grower usually delivers his own stock 
to the Lancaster market, and renting 
space by the year, disposes of his pro¬ 
duct direct to the consumer, and realizes 
a good price for any article his skill may 
produce ahead of the crowded market. 
Soil Conditions.—W e have a soil ex¬ 
actly the opposite of the New Jersey 
Topping The Plants. —In topping a 
tomato plant it is essential that at least 
one leaf be left on the stem above the 
last blossom cluster, and that a sucker 
be left on the stem to continue the 
growth while the plant adjusts itself to 
the topping, and checking of growth at 
that point. Some growers remove a por¬ 
tion of the leaves, but this is a mistake, 
as a topped plant requires all leaves 
properly to mature the fruit. When fruit 
is set on the top cluster of bloom, all 
suckers are again removed and kept off 
till crop is matured. 
Spraying And Cultivation. —Some 
seasons, during unfavorable weather eon- 
liHSTlXO WHILE THE PI IOTOGRA PI I Hit WORKS. 
grower, whose soil is warm and sandy. 
Ours is a heavy clay, usually not con¬ 
sidered the best medium for early to¬ 
matoes, yet in spite of this several years 
ago I was on Dock St., Philadelphia, 
the day the first Jersey tomatoes reached 
that market, and we had ripe tomatoes 
on the Lancaster market a few days pre¬ 
vious, by following the methods exper¬ 
ience has taught these Lancaster County 
growers the necessity of using to get 
their crop off before the dealers bring 
Jersey tomatoes in by the carloads and 
break the market. 
Differences In Methods.- —I was 
very much interested in an article writ¬ 
ten by Trucker, Jr., on the New Jersey 
method, which shows the difference of 
treatmc .t adopted by the growers of dif¬ 
ferent sections. The New Jersey method 
would require only a small portion of 
the work the Lancaster County method 
requires, and would give us a crop of 
tomatoes beginning to ripen just about 
the time the New Jersey crop would be 
over. Necessity being our mother, in¬ 
vention was necessary to realize 10 to 15 
cents per pound for most of our crop 
instead of 75 cents a %-basket, which is 
often the Jersey tomato figure in our 
market. 
Variety And Early Care. —The va¬ 
riety grown is almost entirely Bonny 
Best. The seed is sown about February 
15, and plants are transplanted twice, the 
second time into four-inch p«ts or four- 
inch dirt bands, care being exercised to 
obtain a low stocky growth carrying a 
fine cluster of bloom by May 15. The 
plants are usually grown in a small 
heated greenhouse, or in some instances 
hotbeds heated by a small hot-water 
heater, and properly hardened off by 
May 15, when planting to the field usu¬ 
ally begins. Even after that date we 
have heavy frosts occasionally, and I 
have seen several thousand tomato 
plants protected by paper bags for sev¬ 
eral days at end of May. 
Setting Out. —The plants are usually 
set in rows 30 to 42 inches “apart and 
about 14 to IS inches in the row. Each 
plant is trained to a single stem and 
staked, and tied several times, during the 
growing season. All suckers are removed 
soon as they attain a length of several 
inches, and when the plant has set the 
third cluster of bloom the top is pinched 
out, allowing tomatoes to set on only 
three clusters, which assures a short, 
early crop, bringing considerably more 
money per square foot of ground than 
a large late crop, with infinitely less 
work on the marketing end. 
ditions, the plants will blight somewhat, 
and many of the lower leaves will dry 
up. This can bo held in check by spray¬ 
ing with fungiue, which does not dis¬ 
color the fruit. Clean cultivation is 
practised, and soil is pretty well fertil¬ 
ized, though not much stable manure is 
used, as stable manure on our heavy soil 
causes a heavy vine growth. Different 
brands of fertilizer are used, but any 
good grade will give fair results. An 
application of 1200 to 1500 pounds per 1 
acre broadcast of 2*4 to 3-8-10 has proven 
very satisfactory for us. Some growers 
claim it does not pay to top the plants, 
but practically all are a unit on keeping 
them carefully tied to stakes, and all 
suckers off clean. That is about all ! 
there is to it. Looks easy and simple, 
doesn’t it? If you live near a town of 
any size and are willing to devote a lit¬ 
tle energy to the care of the crop along I 
these lines, and then a little more energy 
toward creating a market for your crop 
either by selling to the stores, or so¬ 
liciting orders of the consumer direct, 
you can make as good returns from a ; 
small portion of soil as with any other 
crop you can plant, and if you are one of 
the real early ones your crop will be off 
during July. Two to three tyings are 
necessary, and stakes about four feet 
long by one inch square will do, and you 
will think the suckers are the only 
thing that grows, but keep at it and you 
will get results. elmer ,t. weaver. 
Lancaster Co., l’a. 
Interpollination of Beans. 
W ILL Soy beans and field beans (red 
kidney <>r yellow eye) mix if planted 
near in the same field? w. vr. b. 
Watkins, N. Y. 
Beans, in common with many other leg¬ 
uminous plants, are self-pollinating, the 
anthers and stigmas maturing together, in 
close contact before the blooms are fully 
developed. The fertilization of the ovules, 
which grow into the seeds or beans, does 
not therefore generally appear to depend 
on the wind, insects or other external 
agencies. In the field cultivation of va¬ 
rieties of the same group or genus of 
beans, when grown close together, pollen 
may occasionally bo carried from one 
bloom to another by minute things that 
are usually abundant among cultivated 
crops, and cross-bred progeny result, but 
with plants as widely separated in their 
physical characters as the garden beans, 
Phaseolus vulgaris, and the Soy bean, 
Glycine lnspida. the probability of “mix¬ 
ing’ or hybridization between the species 
each entirely self-fertile, is so remote as 
not to be worth considering. v. 
The Truth 
ABOUT 
Leather 
I N a recent defensive circular 
to the auto trade, leather 
manufacturers define leather 
as “the skin or hide of an ani¬ 
mal. or any part of such skin 
or hide, tanned or otherwise 
prepared for use.” 
But since, whole hides are too 
thick for upholstery and the 
under fleshy portion must be split away from the grain side to make it 
thin enough, why should the two or three sheets into which the wastage is 
split, be called leather? Although artificially coated and embossed to look 
like real grain leather, they are weak, spongy, and soft, crack, peel and rot. 
X DU PONT Nn 
%BRIKOjl^ 
MOTOR QUALITY 
For Automobiles 
CRAFTSMAN QUALITY 
»io u s pat orr 
For Furniture 
is frankly artificial leather, guaranteed superior to coated splits. Its base 
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heavier and embossed in the same way. 
America’s largest auto makers adopted it for upholstery because it out¬ 
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That foremost furniture maker, S. Karpen, says: “The cheap split 
leathers should be entirely eliminated in furniture upholstering.” 
Two-thirds of all “leather upholstery” is coated splits. Demand superior 
Fabrikoid on your car, buggy or furniture, and Fabrikoid Rayntite tops, 
guaranteed one year against leaking. 
Small Sample Craftsman Quality Free 
or a Piece 18"x25", Postpaid, 50c. 
It is on sale by John Wannmnker, Philadelphia; McCreery & Co., Pittsburgh; 
.1. A II. Phillips. Pittsburgh; John Shillito Co.. Cincinnati;'Stix-l’.aer Fuller Uo.. 
St. Louis: The Palais Royal, Washington. I). C.; Stewart & Co., Baltimore. 
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Canadian Branch: Toronto, Ontario 
Why^ 
No*t 
k G 
Most 
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Room 1' 2,542 S. Oo.rborn St, Ctueaqo. III. 
Getting ahead is 
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