a > ~ < a  * Ss? =e. 
ay BE kk 7, a ae ¥ 
No. 33.] ) : 997 
“plants that were transplanted from the hot-bed. The plants from 
seeds planted in the open ground ripened the first fruit August 21, or 
119 days from planting, while plants. of the same variety removed 
trom the hot-bed (planted March 28) ripened their first fruit August 
19, or 144 days from planting. In other words, plants grown en- 
tirely in the open ground matured a fruit in twenty-five days shorter — 
time than those which were cared for in the hot-bed the first two 
months of their existence. The result is certainly striking, and sug- 
gests that the check given to the plants at the time of transplanting 
may have been nearly sufticient to overbalance all the time gained by 
forcing. We were careful to harden the plants in the hot-bed_ be- 
fore removing them to the garden, and in order that the shock of 
transplanting might be felt as little as possible, we potted the plants 
several days before replanting them in the garden, carefully shading 
them until they were rooted in the pots. Did the transplanting 
check the growth so much, or did the heat of the hot-bed enfeeble | 
them? The subject merits further experiment. 
Observations concerning the Tomato Rot. 
The result of our experiments calculated to give information as to 
whether or not the disease called “ tomato rot ” is transmitted through 
the seed were rather contradictory. We gathered seeds from ap- 
parently normal fruits and from fruits destroyed by rot, in the 
Hathaway’s Excelsior variety, and grew the plants from the two 
y y g P 
samples separately. No difference appeared in the amount of decay 
in the two plantings. 
In a second experiment with the Little Gem variety we selected 
fruits from the plants that contained..the most decayed fruits, and 
from the one that contained the fewest, growing plants from the two 
samples separately. In this case a very marked difference appeared 
in the two plantings. Unexpectedly, this difference was not in the 
amount of decay, but in the vigor of the plants. The plants in the 
two rows were so different in appearance that but for the resemblance 
of the fruit no one would have called them the same variety. We 
were led to suspect, therefore, that there may be more than one affec- 
tion that causes tomatoes to decay prematurely. 
Other interesting information upon this subject will be found in 
the report of the Botanist. 
Do the flowers of the tomato cross-fertilize ? 
In our observations we have found both positive and negative evi- 
dence upon this question. The past season we noted several fruits 
of the Golden Trophy variety distinctly marked with red. The 
fruit of the Trophy tomato varies so much in form and size as to 
strongly suggest cross-fertilization. The fruit of the Mayflower - 
tomato, which in 1882 was large, was the past season so small as to 
be nearly worthless for the table. We think, too, that the fruit of 
the ““No Name” variety was decidedly larger in 1883 than it was 
the past season. On the other hand, the fruit of the Acme, which 
