428 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Dzc , 1897. 
Another Paying Crop for Queensland. 
THE TOMATO. 
« 
By HENRY A. TARDENT, 
Manager of the Westbrook Experiment Farm, 
Ons of the great charms of life in these Australian Colonies is that here the 
poorest of men, the humblest tillers of the soil—provided they are gifted with 
some activity, industry, and taste—can indulge in the enjoyment of the most 
exquisite flowers and fruits, such as are in the old country available only to 
lords and wealthy capitalists provided with hothouses and other artificial heat- 
producing appliances. The enumeration of those grown in Queensland alone 
would include the whole flora of tropical and sub-tropical countries, supplemented 
by all the products of temperate Europe. Among the new products met here, 
on landing, by the immigrant from Great Britain and Northern Europe, none 
perhaps meet with such a universal appreciation as the tomato or love-apple 
(Lycopersicum esculentum). If some do not take to it at once as a fruit, I 
know of nobody who does not like it as a vegetable or condiment. It is 
relished under the form of jams, jeilies, chutneys, pickles, sauces, and salads; 
it is also excellent when stewed, fried, canned, stuffed with rice and minced 
meat. It improves every dish to which it is added, such as soups, stews, 
gravies, &c. It can also be dried in small tablets, and be thus preserved for 
any length of time in a very contracted form. 
Such a general appreciation is due no doubt greatly to its agreeable, sweet, 
and subacid flavour, but also to its refreshing and beneficial effect on the whole 
human body. It stimulates digestion, and facilitates the functions of the 
kidneys and liver, thus counteracting the ill-effects of the excess of meat diet 
in which we too often indulge in these colonies. 
The tomato has also the great advantage of being of easy cultivation. 
The plant, being a native of inter-tropical America (Mexico and Peru), feels, 
so to say, at home in the whole of Queensland. In the north and on the east 
coast it grows nearly without care all the year round. It is necessary, 
however, to train it on stakes, rails, or trellis, for in all countries where wet 
seasons predominate, such a method has considerable advantages, which are 
thus summarised by Mr. J. W. Kirk, the learned and genial Biologist of New 
Zealand :—(1.) It lets in sunlight and air, thus checking most diseases. 
(2.) .By raising the vine (as the stem is called) from the ground, it renders the 
fruit less liable to the attacks of caterpillars, &c. (8.) It greatly facilitates 
spraying, pruning, and gathering. 
Although such a method is recommended by all writers on the subject, 
and regularly reproduced every season by most of our agricultural journals, it 
is, I am sorry to say, no good for the districts situated west of the range, 
which comprise over two-thirds of the colony. 
There are there, peculiarities of seasons and rainfall which require a 
different method of culture altogether. 
First of all, the West is subject to occasional late frosts (we had a rather 
severe one as late as the 12th October at the Experiment Farm), and the 
tomato is extremely sensitive to cold. These two circumstances make it indis- 
pensable to raise the seedlings in hot-beds. I have recently explained (see 
Queensland Agricultural Journal, No. 1) how to make a manure hot-bed. In 
cheaper than manure. In that case, one can make, quite cheaply too, a the 
bush it sometimes occurs, however, that firewood is more plentiful and perma- 
nent hot-bed with furnaces and flues, such as we have now at the Experiment 
