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Title: Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato
Author: William Warner Tracy
Release Date: February 6, 2009 [EBook #28011]
Language: English
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TOMATO CULTURE
A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE TOMATO, ITS HISTORY,
CHARACTERISTICS, PLANTING, FERTILIZATION,
CULTIVATION IN FIELD, GARDEN, AND GREENHOUSE,
HARVESTING, PACKING, STORING, MARKETING, INSECT
ENEMIES AND DISEASES, WITH METHODS OF CONTROL AND
REMEDIES, ETC., ETC.
By
WILL W. TRACY
_Bureau of Plant Industry,
United States Department of Agriculture_
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
1907
To
Dr. F. M. Hexamer
IN HONOR OF HIS LIFELONG EFFORTS FOR THE
BETTERMENT OF AMERICAN HORTICULTURAL
PRACTICE
Copyright, 1907, by
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: WHERE NEW VARIETIES OF TOMATOES ARE DEVELOPED AND TESTED
(By courtesy _American Agriculturist_. Photo by Prof. W. G. Johnson)]
PREFACE
This little book has been written in fulfilment of a promise made many
years ago. Again and again I have undertaken the work, only to lay it
aside because I felt the need of greater experience and wider knowledge.
I do not now feel that this deficiency has been by any means fully
supplied, but in some directions it has been removed through the
kindness of Dr. F. H. Chittenden of the Bureau of Entomology, who wrote
the chapter on insect enemies, and of W. A. Orton of the Bureau of Plant
Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, who wrote the chapter
on diseases of tomatoes.
I have made free use of, without special credit, and am largely indebted
to, the writings of Doctor Sturtevant and Professor Goff, Professor
Munson of Maine, Professor Halsted of New Jersey, Professor Corbett of
Washington, Professor Rolfs of Florida, Professor Bailey of New York,
Professor Green of Ohio, and many others. I have also found a vast
amount of valuable information in the agricultural press of this country
in general. I am also indebted to L. B. Coulter and Prof. W. G. Johnson
for many photographs. My thanks are also due B. F. Williamson, who made
the excellent drawings for this book under Professor Johnson's
direction.
Tomatoes are among the most generally used and popular vegetables. They
are grown not only in gardens, but in large areas in every state from
Maine to California and Washington to Florida, and under very different
conditions of climate, soil and cultural facilities, as well as of
requirements as to character of fruit. The methods which will give the
best results under one set of conditions are entirely unsuited to
others.
I have tried to give the nature and requirements of the plant and the
effect of conditions as seen in my own experience, a knowledge of which
may enable the reader to follow the methods most suited to his own
conditions and requirements, rather than to recommend the exact methods
which have given me the best results.
WILL W. TRACY.
_Washington, April, 1907._
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I
BOTANY OF THE TOMATO 1
CHAPTER II
HISTORY 14
CHAPTER III
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PLANT 20
CHAPTER IV
ESSENTIALS FOR DEVELOPMENT 28
CHAPTER V
SELECTION OF SOIL FOR MAXIMUM CROP 33
CHAPTER VI
EXPOSURE AND LOCATION 38
CHAPTER VII
FERTILIZERS 43
CHAPTER VIII
PREPARATION OF THE SOIL 46
CHAPTER IX
HOTBEDS AND COLD-FRAMES 51
CHAPTER X
STARTING PLANTS 59
CHAPTER XI
PROPER DISTANCE FOR PLANTING 68
CHAPTER XII
CULTIVATION 76
CHAPTER XIII
STAKING, TRAINING AND PRUNING 79
CHAPTER XIV
RIPENING, GATHERING, HANDLING AND MARKETING 90
THE FRUIT
CHAPTER XV
ADAPTATION OF VARIETIES 97
CHAPTER XVI
SEED BREEDING AND GROWING 112
CHAPTER XVII
PRODUCTION FOR CANNING 117
CHAPTER XVIII
COST OF PRODUCTION 121
CHAPTER XIX
INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE TOMATO 123
CHAPTER XX
TOMATO DISEASES 131
INDEX 148
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURE PAGE
1. Where new varieties of tomatoes are developed
and tested _Frontispiece_
2. Tomato flowers 2
3. Two-celled tomato 3
4. Three-celled tomato 3
5. Currant tomato and characteristic clusters 5
6. Red cherry tomato 6
7. Pear-shaped tomato 8
8. Yellow plum tomato 9
9. One of the first illustrations of the tomato 11
10. An early illustration of the tomato 12
11. Typical bunch of modern tomatoes 27
12. Tomatoes trained to stakes in the South 35
13. Three-sash hotbed 52
14. Cross-section of hotbed 53
15. Cold-frames on hill-side 54
16. Transplanting tomatoes under cloth-covered
frames 56
17. Spotting-board for use in cold-frames 61
18. Spotting-board for use on flat 62
19. Tomatoes sown and allowed to grow in hotbeds 69
20. Planting tomatoes on a Delaware farm 75
21. Training tomatoes in Florida to single stake 81
22. Tomato plant trained to single stake 82
23. Method of training to three stems in
forcing-house and out of doors 83
24. Training on line in greenhouse 84
25. Ready to transplant in greenhouse 85
26. Training young tomatoes in greenhouse at New
York experiment station 86
27. Tomatoes in greenhouse at the Ohio
experiment station 87
28. Forcing tomatoes in greenhouse at New Hampshire
experiment station 88
29. Florida tomatoes properly wrapped for long
shipment 93
30. Greenhouse tomatoes packed for market 95
31. Buckeye State, showing long nodes and distance
between fruit clusters 98
32. Stone, and characteristic foliage 99
33. Atlantic Prize, and its normal foliage 101
34. Dwarf Champion 103
35. A cutworm and parent moth 124
36. Flea-beetle 125
37. Margined blister beetle 125
38. Tomato worm 126
39. Tomato stalk-borer 127
40. Characteristic work of the tomato fruit worm 128
41. Adult moth, or parent of tomato fruit worm 129
42. Proper way to make Bordeaux 137
43. Point-rot disease of the tomato 140
TOMATO CULTURE
CHAPTER I
Botany of the Tomato
=The common tomato= of our gardens belongs to the natural order
_Solanaceae_ and the genus _Lycopersicum_. The name from _lykos_, a
wolf, and _persica_, a peach, is given it because of the supposed
aphrodisiacal qualities, and the beauty of the fruit. The genus
comprises a few species of South American annual or short-lived
perennial, herbaceous, rank-smelling plants in which the many branches
are spreading, procumbent, or feebly ascendent and commonly 2 to 6 feet
in length, though under some conditions, particularly in the South and
in California, they grow much longer. They are covered with resinous
viscid secretions and are round, soft, brittle and hairy, when young,
but become furrowed, angular, hard and almost woody with enlarged
joints, when old. The leaves are irregularly alternate, 5 to 15 inches
long, petioled, odd pinnate, with seven to nine short-stemmed leaflets,
often with much smaller and stemless ones between them. The larger
leaflets are sometimes entire, but more generally notched, cut, or even
divided, particularly at the base.
[Illustration: FIG. 2--TOMATO FLOWERS ENLARGED ABOUT 2-1/2 TIMES.
SECTION OF FLOWER SHOWN AT RIGHT (Drawn from a photograph by courtesy of
Prof. L. C. Corbett)]
=The flowers= are pendant and borne in more or less branched clusters,
located on the stem on the opposite side and usually a little below the
leaves; the first cluster on the sixth to twelfth internode from the
ground, with one on each second to sixth succeeding one. The flowers
(Fig. 2) are small, consisting of a yellow, deeply five-cleft,
wheel-shaped corolla, with a very short tube and broadly lanceolate,
recurving petals. The calyx consists of five long linear or lanceolate
sepals, which are shorter than the petals at first, but are persistent,
and increase in size as the fruits mature. The stamens, five in number,
are borne on the throat of the corolla, and consist of long, large
anthers, borne on short filaments, loosely joined into a tube and
opening by a longitudinal slit on the inside, and this is the chief
botanical distinction between this genus and _Solanum_ to which the
potato, pepper, night shade and tobacco belong. The anthers in the
latter genus open at the tip only. The two genera, however, are closely
related and plants belonging to them are readily united by grafting. The
Physalis, Husk tomato or Ground cherry is quite distinct, botanically.
The pistils of the true tomato are short at first, but the style
elongates so as to push the capitate stigma through the tube formed by
the anthers, this usually occurring before the anthers open for the
discharge of the pollen. The fruit is a two to many-celled berry with
central fleshy placenta and many small kidney-shaped seeds which are
densely covered with short, stiff hairs, as seen in Figs. 3 and 4.
[Illustration: FIG. 3--TWO-CELLED TOMATO]
[Illustration: FIG. 4--THREE-CELLED TOMATO]
It is comparatively easy to define the genus with which the tomato
should be classed botanically, but it is by no means so easy to classify
our cultivated varieties into botanical species. We have in cultivation
varieties which are known to have originated in gardens and from the
same parentage, but which differ from each other so much in habit of
growth, character of leaf and fruit and other respects, that if they had
been found growing wild they would unhesitatingly be pronounced
different species, and botanists are not agreed as to how our many and
very different garden varieties should be classified botanically. Some
contend that all of our cultivated sorts are varieties of but two
distinct species, while others think they have originated from several.
=Classification.=--The author suggests the following classification,
differing somewhat from that sometimes given, as he believes that the
large, deep-sutured fruit of our cultivated varieties and the distinct
pear-shaped sorts come from original species rather than from variations
of _Lycopersicum cerasiforme_:
=Currant tomato, Grape tomato, German or Raisin tomato= (_Lycopersicum
pimpinellifolium_, _L. racemiforme_) (Fig. 5).--Universally regarded as
a distinct species. Plant strong, growing with many long, slender, weak
branches which are not so hairy, viscid, or ill-smelling, and never
become so hard or woody as those of the other species. The numerous
leaves are very bright green in color, leaflets small, nearly entire,
with many small stemless ones between the others. Fruit produced
continuously and in great quantity on long racemes like those of the
currant, though they are often branched. They continue to elongate and
blossom until the fruit at the upper end is fully ripened. Fruit small,
less than 1/2 inch in diameter, spherical, smooth and of a particularly
bright, beautiful red color which contrasts well with the bright green
leaves, and this abundance of beautifully colored and gracefully poised
fruit makes the plant worthy of more general cultivation as an ornament,
though the fruit is of little value for culinary use. This species, when
pure, has not varied under cultivation, but it readily crosses with
other species and with our garden varieties, and many of these owe their
bright red color to the influence of crosses with the above species.
[Illustration: FIG. 5--CURRANT TOMATO AND CHARACTERISTIC CLUSTERS]
[Illustration: FIG. 6--RED CHERRY TOMATO]
=Cherry tomato= (_L. cerasiforme_) (Fig. 6).--Plant vigorous, with stout
branches which are distinctly trailing in habit. Leaves flat or but
slightly curled. Fruit very abundant, borne in short, branched
clusters, globular, perfectly smooth, with no apparent sutures. From 1/2
to 3/4 inch in diameter and either red or yellow in color, two-celled
with numerous comparatively small, kidney-shaped seeds. Many of our
garden varieties show evidence of crosses with this species, and by many
it is regarded as the original wild form of all of our cultivated sorts.
These, when they escape from cultivation and become wild plants, as they
often do, from New Jersey southward, produce fruit which, in many
respects, resembles that of this species in size and form; but they are
generally more flattened, globe-shaped, with more or less distinct
sutures on the upper side, and I have never seen any fruit of these wild
plants which could not be readily distinguished from that of the true
Cherry tomato.
Prof. P. H. Rolfs, Director of the Florida experiment station, reports
that among the millions of volunteer, or wild, tomatoes he has seen
growing in the abandoned tomato fields in Florida, he has never seen a
plant with fruit which could not be easily distinguished from that of
the true Cherry tomato. Again, one can, by selection and cultivation,
easily develop from these wild forms plants producing fruit as large and
often practically identical with that of our cultivated varieties, while
I have given a true stock of Cherry tomato most careful cultivation on
the best of soil for 20 consecutive generations without any increase in
size or change in character of the fruit.
[Illustration: FIG. 7--PEAR-SHAPED TOMATO]
[Illustration: FIG. 8--YELLOW PLUM TOMATO, SHOWING MOST USUAL FORM OF
CLUSTER]
=Pear (not Plum) tomato= (_L. pyriforme_) (Fig. 7).--Plant exceptionally
vigorous, with comparatively few long, stout stems inclined to ascend.
Leaves numerous, broad, flat, with a distinct bluish-green color
noticeable, even in the cotyledons. Fruit abundant, borne in short
branched or straight clusters of five to ten fruits. It is perfectly
smooth, without sutures, and of the shape of a long, slender-necked
pear, not over an inch in transverse by 1-1/2 inches in longitudinal
diameter. When the stock is pure the fruit retains this form very
persistently. The production of egg-shaped or other forms is a sure
indication of impure stock. They are bright red, dark yellow, or light
yellowish white in color, two-celled, with very distinct central
placenta and comparatively few and large seeds. The fruit is inclined to
ripen unevenly, the neck remaining green when the rest of the fruit is
quite ripe. It is less juicy than that of most of our garden sorts but
of a mild and pleasant flavor. This is considered, by many, to be
simply a garden variety, but I am inclined to the belief that it is a
distinct species and that the contrary view comes from the study of the
impure and crossed stocks resulting from crosses between the true Pear
tomato and garden sorts which are frequently sold by seedsmen as
pear-shaped. Many garden sorts--like the Plum (Fig. 8), the Egg, the
Golden Nugget, Vick's Criterion, etc.--are known to have originated from
crosses of the Pear and I think that most, if not all, the garden sorts
in which the longitudinal diameter of the fruit is greater than its
transverse diameter owe this form to crosses with _L. pyriforme_.
=Cultivated varieties= (_L. esculentum_).--This is commonly used as the
botanical name of our cultivated varieties, rather than as the name of a
distinct species. In western South America, however, there is found
growing a wild plant of Lycopersicum which differs from the other
recognized species in being more compact in growth, with fewer branches
and larger leaves, and carrying an immense burden of fruit borne in
large clusters. The fruit is larger than that of the other species but
much smaller than that of our cultivated sorts; is very irregular in
shape, always with distinct sutures, and often deeply corrugated and
bright red in color. The walls are thin; the flesh is soft, with a
distinct sharp, acid flavor much less agreeable than that of our
cultivated forms of garden tomatoes.
[Illustration: FIG. 9--ONE OF THE FIRST ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TOMATO
_Poma amoris_, (_Pomum aureum_), (_Lycopersicum_), 1581]
[Illustration: FIG. 10--AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION OF THE TOMATO (From
Morrison's "Historia Universalis," 1680)]
This has commonly been regarded by botanists as a degenerate form of our
garden tomatoes, rather than as an original species, but I find that,
like _L. cerasiforme_ and _L. pyriforme_, it is quite fixed under
cultivation, except as crossed with other species or with our garden
varieties, and I believe it to be the original species from which our
cultured sorts have been developed, by crossing and selection. Such
crosses probably were made either naturally or by natives before the
tomato was discovered by Europeans. The earliest prints we have of the
tomato (Figs. 9 and 10) are far more like the fruit of this plant than
that of _L. cerasiforme_, and the prints of many of the earliest garden
varieties and of some sorts which are still cultivated in southern
Europe, for use in soups, are like it not only in size and form, but in
flavor. These facts make it seem far more probable that our cultivated
sorts have come, by crossing, between this and other species rather than
by simple development from _L. cerasiforme_.
Prof. E. S. Goff, of Wisconsin, who has made a most careful study of the
tomato, expressed the same opinion, writing that it seemed to him that
our cultivated sorts must have come from the crossing of a small, round,
smooth, sutureless type, with a larger, deep-sutured, corrugated fruit,
like that of the Mammoth Chihuahua, but smaller. However this may be, I
think that it is wise to throw all of our cultivated garden sorts,
except the Pear, the Cherry, and the Grape--which I regard as distinct
species--together under the name of _L. esculentum_, even when we know
they have originated by direct crosses with the other species; and it is
well to classify the upright growing sorts under the varietal names, _L.
validum_, and the larger, heavier sorts, as _L. grandifolium_, as has
been done by Bailey. (Cyclopedia of Horticulture.)
CHAPTER II
History
The garden vegetable known in this country as tomato and generally as
tomate in continental Europe, is also known as Wolf-peach and Love Apple
in England and America, and Liebesapfel in Germany, Pomme d'Amour in
France, Pomo d'oro in Italy, Pomidor in Poland.
=Origin of name.=--The name tomato is of South American origin, and is
derived from the Aztec word _xitomate_, or _zitotomate_, which is given
the fruit of both the Common tomato and that of the Husk or Strawberry
tomato or Physalis. Both vegetables were highly prized and extensively
cultivated by the natives long before the discovery of the country by
Europeans, and there is little doubt that many of the plants first seen
and described by Europeans as wild species were really garden varieties
originated with the native Americans by the variation or crossing of the
original wild species.
=Different types now common=, according to Sturtevant, have become known
to, and been described by Europeans in about the following order:
1. Large yellow, described by Matthiolus in 1554 and called
Golden apple.
2. Large red, described by Matthiolus in 1554 and called Love
apple.
3. Purple red, described by D'el Obel in 1570.
4. White-fleshed, described by Dodoens in 1586.
5. Red cherry, described by Bauhin in 1620.
6. Yellow cherry, described by Bauhin in 1620.
7. Ochre yellow, described by Bauhin in 1651.
8. Striped, blotched or visi-colored, described by Bauhin in
1651.
9. Pale red, described by Tournefort in 1700.
10. Large smooth, or ribless red, described by Tournefort in
1700.
11. Bronzed-leaved, described by Blacknell in 1750.
12. Deep orange, described by Bryant in 1783.
13. Pear-shaped, described by Dunal in 1805.
14. Tree tomato, described by Vilmorin in 1855.
15. Broad-leaved, introduced about 1860.
The special description of No. 10 by Tournefort in 1700 would indicate
that large smooth sorts, like Livingston's Stone, were in existence
fully 200 years ago, instead of being modern improvements, as is
sometimes claimed; and a careful study of old descriptions and cuts and
comparing them with the best examples of modern varieties led Doctor
Sturtevant in 1889 to express the opinion that they had fruit as large
and smooth as those we now grow, before the tomato came into general use
in America, and possibly before the fruit was generally known to
Europeans. Even the production of fine fruit under glass is not so
modern as many suppose. In transactions of the London Horticultural
Society for 1820, John Wilmot is reported to have cultivated under glass
in 1818 some 600 plants and gathered from his entire plantings under
glass and in borders some 130 bushels of ripe fruit. It is stated that
the growth that year exceeded the demand, and that the fruit obtained
was of extraordinary size, some exceeding 12 inches in circumference and
weighing 12 ounces each. Thomas Meehan states in _Gardeners' Monthly_
for February, 1880, that on January 8, of that year, he saw growing in
the greenhouses on Senator Cannon's place near Harrisburg, Pa., at
least 1 bushel of ripe fruits, none of which were less than 10 inches in
circumference,--a showing which compares with the best to be seen
to-day.
Throughout southern Europe the value of the fruit for use in soups and
as a salad seems to have been at once recognized, and it came into quite
general use, especially in Spain and Italy, during the 17th century; but
in northern Europe and England, though the plant was grown in botanical
gardens and in a few private places as a curiosity and for the beauty of
its fruit, this was seldom eaten, being commonly regarded as unhealthy
and even poisonous, and on this account, and probably because of its
supposed aphrodisiacal qualities, it did not come into general use in
those northern countries until early in the 19th century.
=First mention= in America, I find of its being grown for culinary use,
was in Virginia in 1781. In 1788 a Frenchman in Philadelphia made most
earnest efforts to get people to use the fruit, but with little success,
and similar efforts by an Italian in Salem, Mass., in 1802, were no more
successful. The first record I can find of the fruit being regularly
quoted in the market was in New Orleans in 1812, and the earliest
records I have been able to find of the seed being offered by seedsmen,
as that of an edible vegetable, was by Gardener and Hipburn in 1818, and
by Landreth in 1820. Buist's "Kitchen Gardener" says: "In 1828-9 it (the
tomato) was almost detested and commonly considered poisonous. Ten years
later every variety of pill and panacea was 'extract of tomatoes,' and
now (1847) almost as much ground is devoted to its culture as to the
cabbage." In 1834 Professor Dunglison, of the University of Virginia,
said: "The tomato may be looked upon as one of the most wholesome and
valuable esculents of the garden."
Yet, though the fruit has always received similar commendation from
medical men, there has been constant recurring superstition that it is
unhealthy. Only a few years ago there was in general circulation a
statement that an eminent physician had discovered that eating tomatoes
tended to develop cancer. This has been definitely traced to the playful
question, asked as a joke by Dr. Dio Lewis, "Didn't you know that eating
bright red tomatoes caused cancer?" In more recent years an equally
unfounded claim has been made that tomato seeds were responsible for
many cases of appendicitis and that it was consequently dangerous to eat
the fruit.
I give some quotations for tomatoes in Quincy Hall Market, Boston, with
some for other vegetables, for comparison. The records show that during
the week ending July 22, 1835, tomatoes were quoted at 50 cents per
dozen, cabbage at 50 cents per dozen. For the week ending September 22,
1835, tomatoes were quoted at 25 cents per peck, lima beans, 12-1/2
cents per quart shelled, with comment that tomatoes are in much demand
and a far greater quantity has been sold than in previous years. During
the week ending July 22, 1837, tomatoes were quoted at 25 and 50 cents
per peck, and the note that they are of good size and were well ripened
and came from gardens in the vicinity would indicate that they had at
that time early maturing varieties and knew how to grow them. From about
1835 till the present time the cultivation and use of tomatoes have
constantly increased both in this country and in Europe, so that now
they are one of the most largely grown of our garden vegetables.
A suggestion as to the extent they are now grown in America is the fact
that a single seed grower saved in 1903 over 20,000 pounds of tomato
seed--an amount sufficient to furnish plants for from 80,000 to 320,000
acres, according to the care used in raising them, the larger quantity
not requiring more care than the best growers commonly use. A careful
estimate made by the _American Grocer_ shows that in 1903 the packing of
tomatoes by canners in the United States amounted to 246,775,426
three-pound cans. In addition to the canned tomato, between 200,000 and
250,000 barrels of catsup stock is put up annually, requiring the
product of at least 20,000 acres.
It is probable that the area required to produce the fruit that is used
fresh at least equals that devoted to the production for preserving,
which give us from 400,000 to 500,000 acres devoted to this crop each
year in America alone. The fruit is perhaps in more general use in
America than elsewhere, but its cultivation and use have increased
rapidly in other countries, particularly with the English speaking
races. Large quantities are grown in Australia, and immense and
constantly increasing quantities are grown under glass in England and
adjacent islands, while _The Gardeners' Chronicle_ states that in 1903
between 600,000 and 800,000 pounds of fresh fruit were imported into
England from other countries.
CHAPTER III
General Characteristics of the Plant
=In the native home= of the tomato, in South America, the conditions of
the soil, both as regards composition and mechanical condition, of the
moisture both in soil and air, and those of temperature and sunlight,
are throughout the growing season not only very favorable for rapid
growth, but are uniformly and constantly so. Under such conditions there
has been developed a plant which, while vigorous, tenacious of life,
capable of rapid growth and enormously productive, is not at all hardy
in the sense of ability to endure untoward conditions either in the
character of soil, of water supply, or of temperature. A check in the
development because of any unfavorable condition is never fully
recovered from, but will inevitably affect the total quantity and
quality of the fruit produced, even if subsequent favorable conditions
result in the rapid and vigorous growth of the plant.
I know of an instance where two adjoining fields belonging to A and B
were set with tomatoes, using plants started in the same hotbed from the
same lot of seed. The soil was of equal natural fertility and each field
received about the same quantity of manure, though that given A's was
all well decomposed and worked into the soil, while that given B's was
fresh and raw and simply plowed in. A's field was put into the best
possible tilth before setting the plants, and the management of the
plants and their cultivation were such as to secure unchecked growth
from the time they were pricked out into cold-frames and set in the
field until the crop was matured. As long as the plants would permit,
the soil was cultivated every few days and kept in a state of perfect
tilth.
B's field when the plants were set out was a mass of clods, as it had
been plowed, when wet, some time before and never harrowed but once.
The plants had been crowded forward as rapidly as possible in the
cold-frame, and when set in the field were much higher than A's, but so
soft that they were badly checked in transplanting and a great many of
them died and had to be reset. The field received but one or two
cultivations during the entire season. The growth of the plants in B's
field was irregular and uneven instead of steady and uniform as in A's,
and though some of the fruits were quite as large, they were not as
uniform as A's while the yield per acre was not more than half as much
nor the fruit of as good general quality. B had difficulty in disposing
of his crop and often had to sell below the market, while A had no
trouble in disposing of his at the highest prices for the day. B's crop
was a financial loss, while A's returned a most satisfactory profit.
The key to the most successful culture of the tomato is the securing,
from the start to finish, of an unchecked uniform growth, though it need
not necessarily be a rapid one. The failure to do this is, in my
opinion, the principal reason for the comparatively small yield usually
obtained, which is very much less than it would be with better cultural
management. The tomato under conditions which I have repeatedly found it
practicable to secure, not only in small plantings but in large fields,
has proved capable of producing from 1,000 to 1,200 or even more bushels
to the acre, and the possible yield per plant is enormous.
As early as 1818 the Royal Horticultural Society of London reports the
obtaining of over 40 pounds of fruit of marketable character from a
single vine. An acre of such plants would give a yield of over 1,800
bushels of fruit, and many similar yields, and even greater ones, have
been recorded for single plants. The yield commonly obtained, even in
favorable locations, and by men who have grown tomatoes all their lives,
is more often less than 200 bushels to the acre than more. The way to
secure a better yield is to study carefully the nature and requirements
of the plants and the adaptation of our cultural practice to them.
=Life habit of the plant.=--The tomato could be described as a
short-lived perennial, but its span of life is somewhat variable. Under
favorable conditions it will develop from starting seed to first ripe
fruit in from 85 to 120 days of full sunshine with a constant day
temperature of from 75 to 90° F., and with one from 15 to 20° F. lower
at night. The plants will ordinarily continue in full fruit for about 50
to 60 days, after which they generally become so exhausted by excessive
production of fruit and the effects of diseases to which they are
usually subject that their root action and sap circulation become weaker
and weaker until they die from starvation. From Philadelphia southward
gardeners expect that spring set plants will thus exhaust themselves and
die by late summer, and they sow seed in late spring or early summer for
plants on which they depend for late summer and fall crops.
Under some conditions, particularly in the Gulf states and in
California, tomato plants will not only grow to a much greater size than
normal, but will continue to thrive and bear fruit for a longer time.
Such a plant grown in Pasadena, Cal., was said to have been in constant
bearing for over 10 months. Again, sometimes plants that have produced a
full crop of fruits will start new sets of roots and leaves and produce
a second and even a third crop, each, however, being produced on new
branches and as a result of a fresh set of roots, those which produced
the preceding crop having died and disappeared. The period of
development, 85 to 120 days of full sunshine at a temperature above 75°
F., has been given. The full sunshine and high temperature are essential
to such rapid development, and in so far as there is a lack of sunshine
from clouds or shade, or the day temperature falls below 75° F. the
period will be lengthened, so that in the greater part of the United
States the elapsed time between starting seed to ripened fruit is
usually as much as from 120 to 150 days and often even longer.
=Characteristics of the root.=--The roots of the tomato plant, while
abundant in number, are short and can only gather food and water from a
limited area. A plant of garden bean, for instance, is not more than
half the size of one of the tomato, but its roots extend through the
soil to a greater distance, gather plant food from a greater bulk of
soil, seem better able to search out and gather the particular food
element which the plant needs than do those of the tomato. This
characteristic of the latter plant makes the composition of the soil as
to the proportion of easily available food elements of great importance.
Tomato roots are also exceedingly tender and incapable of penetrating a
hard and compact soil, so that the condition of the soil as to tilth is
of greater importance with regard to tomatoes than with most garden
vegetables.
Another characteristic of the tomato roots is that the period of their
active life is short. When young they are capable of transmitting water
and nutritive material very rapidly, but they soon become clogged and
inefficient to such an extent as to result in the starvation and death
of the plant. If the branches of such an exhausted plant be bent over
and covered with earth they will frequently start new roots and produce
a fresh crop of fruit, or if plants which have made a crop in the
greenhouse be transplanted to the garden and cut back, a new set of
roots will often develop and the plant will produce a second crop of
fruit which, in amount, often equals or exceeds the first one. But such
growths come only from new roots springing from the stem--never from an
extension of the old root system.
=Characteristics of the stem and leaves.=--The growth of the stem, and
leaves of the young tomato plant is very rapid and, the cellular
structure coarse, loose and open. A young branch is easily broken and
when this is done it shows scarcely any fibrous structure--simply a mass
of coarse cellular matter which while capable, when young, of
transmitting nutritive matter rapidly, soon becomes dogged and inert.
This structure not only makes the active life of the leaves short, like
that of the roots, but necessitates a fresh growth in order to continue
the fruitfulness of the plant and renders the leaves very susceptible to
injury from bacterial and fungous diseases. The rapid growth also
necessitates an abundance of sunlight.
=Characteristics of the blossom.=--The inflorescence of the tomato is
usually abundant and it is rare that a plant does not produce sufficient
blooms for a full crop. The flowers are perfect as far as parts are
concerned (Fig. 2) and in bright, sunny weather there is an abundance of
pollen, but sunlight and warmth are essential to its maturing into a
condition in which it can easily reach the stigma. The structure and
development of the flower are such that while occasionally, particularly
in healthy plants out of doors, the stigma becomes receptive and takes
the pollen as it is pushed out through the stamen tube by the elongating
style, it is more often pushed beyond them before the pollen matures, so
that the pollen has to reach the stigma through some other means.
Usually this is accomplished by the wind, either directly or through the
motion of the plants.
Under glass it is generally necessary to assist the fertilization either
directly by application or by motion of the plant, this latter only
being effective in the middle of a bright sunny day. In the open ground
in cold, damp weather the flowers often fail of fertilization, in which
case they drop, and this is often the first indication of a failing of
the crop on large, strong vines. I have known of many cases where the
yield of fruit from large and seemingly very healthy vines was very
light because continual rains prevented the pollenization of the
flowers. Such failures, however, do not always come from a want of
pollen but may result from an over or irregular supply of water either
at the root or in the air, imperfectly balanced food supply, a sapping
of the vitality of the plants when young, or from other causes. Insects
rarely visit tomato flowers and are seldom the means of their
fertilization.
=Characteristics of the fruit.=--The fruit of the original species from
which our cultivated tomatoes have developed was doubtless a
comparatively small two to many-celled berry, with comparatively dry
central placenta and thin walls. In some species the cells were
indicated by distinct sutures, forming a rough or corrugated fruit. It
has improved under cultivation by increase in size, the material
thickening of the cell walls, the development of greater juiciness and
richer flavor and a decrease in the size and dryness of the placenta, as
well as the breaking up of the cells by fleshy partitions resulting in
the disappearance of the deep sutures and an improvement in the
smoothness and beauty of the fruit. (Fig. 11.)
The quality of the fruit is largely dependent upon varietal differences,
to be spoken of later, but it is also influenced by conditions of
growth--such as the proportion of the nutritive elements found in the
soil, the proper supply of moisture, the degree and uniformity of
temperature and, most of all, the amount of sunlight. Sudden changes of
temperature and moisture often result in cracks and fissures in the skin
and flesh, which not only injure the appearance but affect the flavor of
the fruit.
[Illustration: FIG. 11--TYPICAL BUNCH OF MODERN TOMATOES Contrast with
Figs. 9 and 10]
CHAPTER IV
Essentials for Development
=Sunlight.=--Abundant and unobstructed sunlight is the most essential
condition for the healthy growth of the tomato. It is a native of the
sunny South and will not thrive except in full and abundant sunlight. I
have never been able to grow good tomatoes in the shade even where it is
only partial. The entire plant needs the sunlight. The blossoms often
fail to set and the fruit is lacking in flavor because of shade, from
excessive leaf growth, or other obstruction.
The great difficulty in winter forcing tomatoes under glass in the North
comes from the want of sunlight during the short days of the winter
months. Were it not for the short winter days of the higher latitudes
limiting the hours of sunshine, tomatoes could be grown under glass in
the northern states to compete in price, when the better quality of
vine-ripened fruits is considered, with those from the Gulf states.
Growers are learning that tomatoes can be profitably grown under glass
during the longer spring days, and consumers are beginning to appreciate
the superior quality of fruit ripened on the vine over that picked green
and ripened in transit. At no time is this need of abundance of light of
greater importance than when the plants are young and, if they fail to
receive it, no subsequent favorable conditions will enable them to
recover fully from its ill effects. It is not so much the want of room
for the roots as of light for the leaves that makes the plants which
have been crowded in the seed-beds so weak and unprofitable.
I once divided 100 young tomato plants, about 2 inches high, into four
lots of 25 each, numbering them 1, 2, 3 and 4. The plants of lots No. 1
and 2 were set equal distance apart in box A, and those of lots No. 3
and 4 in the same way in box B; both boxes being about 16 inches wide,
40 inches long and 4 inches deep. The two boxes were set together across
the side bench of a greenhouse with the outer edge against a board wall
some 2-1/2 feet high, so that the plants at the end of the box near the
wall received much less light than those at the other end. They remained
there about five weeks and then were taken out and the plants set in the
open ground. During the five weeks box A, containing lots No. 1 and 2,
was changed, end for end, every day so that those two lots of plants
received nearly an equal amount of sunlight, but box B was not changed
so that lot No. 3, at one end of the box, was constantly near the walk
and in the full light, while lot No. 4, at the other end of the box, was
constantly near the wall and in partial shade. The effect on the growth
of the plants was very marked. The plants of lot No. 4 were nearly twice
as high, but with much softer stems and leaves than those of lot No. 3.
The plants received equal care when set side by side in the open ground
and at the time the first fruit was gathered seemed of equal size and
vigor, but the total yield of fruit of lots No. 1, 2 and 3 was very
nearly the same and in each case at the rate of over 100 bushels an acre
more than that from lot No. 4. This is but one of the scores of
experiences which have led me to appreciate, in some degree, the
necessity of plenty of sunlight for the best development of the tomato.
=Heat.=--The plant thrives best out of doors in a dry temperature of 75
to 85° F., or even up to 95° F., if the air is not too dry and is in
gentle circulation. The rate of growth diminishes as the temperature
falls below 75° until at 50° there is practically no growth; the plant
is simply living at a poor dying rate and if the growth, particularly in
young plants, is checked in this way for any considerable time they will
never produce a full crop of fruit, even if the plants reach full size
and are seemingly vigorous and healthy. The plant is generally killed by
exposure for even a short time to freezing temperature, though young
volunteer plants in the spring are frequently so hardened by exposure
that they will survive a frost that crusts the ground they stand in; but
such exposure affects the productiveness of the plant, even if it
subsequently makes a seemingly vigorous and healthy growth. Under glass,
plants usually do best in a temperature somewhat lower than is most
desirable out of doors. I think this is due to the inevitable
obstruction of the sunlight and the lack of perfect ventilation.
=Moisture.=--Although the tomato is not a desert plant and needs a
plentiful supply of water, it suffers far more frequently, particularly
when the plants are young, from an over-supply than from the want of
water. Good drainage at the root and warm, dry, sunny air, in gentle
motion, are what it delights in. Good drainage is essential not only to
the best growth of the plant but to the production of any fruit of good
quality. So important is this feature that though it can be readily
proved that, other things being equal, the tomato will give larger yield
and better fruit on well drained clay loam than on sandy soil, yet it is
more generally and more successfully planted on sandy lands simply
because they are usually better drained and on this account give better
crops. While excess of water in the soil is most injurious to the young
and growing plant, an abundance of it at the time the fruit swells and
ripens is very essential, and a want of it at that time results in small
and imperfect fruit of poor flavor. Excessive moisture in the air is
just as injurious as at the root. In my personal experience I have known
of more failures in tomato crops, at least in the northern states, to
come from a season of persistent rains and damp atmosphere at the time
when the plants should be in bloom and setting fruit than from any other
climatic cause.
=Food supply.=--The tomato is not a gross feeder nor is the crop an
exhaustive one, but the plant is very particular as to its food supply.
It is an epicure among plants and demands that its food shall not only
be to its taste in quality but that it be well served. In order for the
plant to do its best, or even well, it is essential that the food
elements be in the right proportions and readily available. If there is
a deficiency of any single element there will be but a meager crop of
fruit, no matter how abundant the supply of the others. An over-supply
of an element, especially nitrogen, is hardly less injurious and will
actually lessen the yield of fruit though it may increase the size of
the vine. Not only must the food be in right proportions but in such
condition as to be readily available. Tomato roots have little power to
wrest plant food from the soil. The use of coarse, unfermented manure is
even more unsatisfactory with this than with other crops. The enormous
yields sometimes obtained by English gardeners from plants grown under
glass result from a supply of food of the right proportions and in
solution, instead of incorporating it in a crude condition with the
soil.
=Cultivation.=--The tomato is grown in all parts of the United States
and under very different conditions, not only as to climate and soil but
as to the facilities for growing and handling the crop and the way in
which it is done. What would be ideal conditions of soil and the most
advantageous methods under some conditions would not be at all desirable
in others. In some cases the largest possible yield an acre, in others
fruit at the lowest cost a bushel, or at the earliest possible date, or
in a continuous supply and of the best quality, is the greatest
desideratum. It is impossible to give specific instructions which would
be applicable to all these varying conditions and requirements; so I
give general cultural directions for maximum crops with variations
suggested for special conditions and requirements, and then the reader
may follow those which seem best suited to his individual conditions.
CHAPTER V
Selection of Soil for Maximum Crop
Large yields of tomatoes have been, and can be, obtained from soils of
varying composition, from a gumbo prairie, a black marsh muck, or a
stiff, tenacious clay, to one of light drifting sand, provided other
conditions, such as drainage, tilth and fertility are favorable. The
Connecticut experiment station and others have secured good results from
plants grown under glass in a soil of sifted coal ashes and muck, or
even from coal ashes alone, the requisite plant food being supplied in
solution. But a maximum crop could never, and a full one very seldom, be
produced on a soil, no matter what its composition, which could not be,
or was not put into and kept in a good state of tilth, or on one which
was poorly drained, sodden or sour, or which was so leachy that it was
impossible to retain a fair supply of moisture and of plant food.
Of the 10 largest yields of which I have personal knowledge and which
ran from 1,000 to 1,200 bushels of fruit (acceptable for canning and at
least two-thirds of it of prime market quality) an acre, four were grown
on soils classed as clay loam, two on heavy clay--one of which was so
heavy that clay for making brick was subsequently taken from the very
spot which yielded the most and best fruit--one on what had been a black
ash swamp, one on a sandy muck, two on a sandy loam and one on a light
sand made very rich by heavy, annual manuring for several years. They
were all perfectly watered and drained, in good heart, liberally
fertilized with manures of proved right proportions for each field, and
above all, the fields were put into and kept in perfect tilth by methods
suited to each case; while the plants used were of good stock and so
grown, set and cultivated that their growth was never stopped or hardly
checked for even a day. These conditions as to soil and culture,
together with seasons of exceptionally favorable weather, resulted in
uniformly large crops on these widely different soils.
[Illustration: FIG. 12--TOMATOES TRAINED TO STAKES ON A GEORGIA FARM]
The composition of the soil, then, as to its proportions of sand or clay
is of minor importance as regards a maximum yield or as to quality of
the fruit, except as it affects our ability to put and keep the soil in
good physical condition. The tomato crop, however, particularly when the
plants are trimmed and trained to stakes, as is the usual practice in
the South, as seen in Fig. 12, with crops grown for early shipment,
necessitates in the trimming and training of the plants and the
gathering of the fruit when it is in the right degree of maturity for
shipment a great deal of trampling of the surface regardless of whether
it is wet or dry. Consequently if the surface soil has any considerable
proportion of clay there is danger of compacting and even puddling it by
working when wet, to the great detriment of the crop. Again, a more or
less sandy surface soil can be much more easily worked than one with a
large proportion of clay. For these reasons our choice of a soil for the
lowest cost a bushel and probably for a maximum yield should be a rich
sandy or sandy loam surface soil overlying a well-drained clay
sub-soil. I would prefer one which was originally covered with a heavy
growth of beech and maple timber, though I should want it to be "old
land" at the time. Tomatoes do not succeed as well on prairie soils,
particularly if they are at all heavy, as they do on timbered lands, but
one need not despair of a profitable crop of tomatoes on any soil which
would give a fair crop of corn or of cotton.
=For early-ripening fruit.=--Sometimes the profit and satisfaction from
a tomato crop depend more largely upon the earliness of ripening than
upon the amount of yield or cost of growing. In such cases a warm, sandy
loam, or even a distinctly sandy soil, is to be preferred, as this is
apt to be warmer and the fruit will be matured much earlier on it than
on a heavier soil. It is essential, however, that it be well drained and
warm. Often lands classed as sandy are really colder than some of those
classed as clay, and such soils should be carefully avoided if early
maturity is important.
=For the home garden.=--Here we seldom have a choice, but no one need
despair and abandon effort, no matter what the soil may be, for it is
quite possible to raise an abundant home supply on any soil and that,
too, without inordinate cost and labor. Some of the most prolific plants
and the finest fruits I have ever seen were grown in a village lot which
five years before had been filled in to a depth of 3 to 10 feet with
clay, coal ashes and refuse from a brick and coal yard. In another
instance magnificent fruit was grown in a garden where the soil was
originally made up chiefly of sawdust mixed with sand, drawn on a
foundation of sawmill edgings so as to raise it above the water of a
swamp. Where one has to contend with such conditions he should make an
effort to create a friable soil with a supply of humus by adding the
material needed. A very few loads, sometimes even a single load, of clay
or sand will greatly change the character of the soil of a sufficient
area to grow the one or two dozen plants necessary for a family supply.
In the two cases mentioned, the owner of the first named garden used
both sand and sawdust to lighten his soil, while the second drew a great
many loads of clay on his.
=Growing under glass.=--I would make up a soil composed of about three
parts rotted sod, two or three parts of well-rotted stable manure (and
it is very important that it be well decomposed) and one part either of
coarse, sharp sand, sandy loam or clay loam, according as the sod soil
is light or heavy, the aim being to form a rich, light, open soil rather
than one which is as heavy and compact as desirable for some plants. If
sod soil is not available, of course, garden loam can be substituted,
but it is very important that the soil be thoroughly mixed, and
desirable that it be prepared sometime before it is to be used. Some
growers use the same soil for several crops, simply adding some fresh
manure; but, if so used, it is important that it be stirred and
thoroughly re-mixed and sterilized.
CHAPTER VI
Exposure and Location
In sections where there is danger of the plants being killed by early
fall frosts before they have ripened their entire crop, exposure of the
field is sometimes of importance in determining the marketable yield.
A gentle inclination to the south, with a protection of higher land or
timber on the sides from which frost or high winds are most likely to
come, is the best. A steep descent to the south, shut in by high land to
the east and west, so as to form a hot pocket, is not favorable for a
maximum crop although it may give a smaller yield of early ripening
fruit; nor is a small field entirely surrounded by forest desirable.
I once knew of a field, of about two acres, sloping to the south and
entirely surrounded by heavy timber, on which two or three tomato crops
were failures when other fields on the same farm gave large yields, but
after the timber on the south and east had been cut away this field
generally gave the largest yield in the neighborhood.
=Location.=--While exposure is in some cases an important factor in
determining the total yield an acre, and so the cost, the location of
the field as regards distance from marketing point and the character of
the roads between them is of far greater importance in determining the
cost and profit of crop, but one which is very often disregarded. The
marketable product of an acre of tomatoes weighs from 3 to 30 tons,
which is not only more than that of most farm crops, but the product is
of such character that its value is easily destroyed by long hauls over
ordinary roads. It has to be marketed within a day or two of the time it
is in prime condition, regardless of the conditions of the roads or
weather; so that it is quite deceptive to estimate the cost of delivery
at the same rate a ton, as for potatoes or wheat, for it always costs
more, and sometimes several times more, to deliver tomatoes than it
would to deliver the same weight of less perishable crops. In most cases
the cost of picking and delivery is one of the most important factors in
determining profit and loss, particularly when the crop is grown for
canning factories, where one often has to wait for hours for his team to
unload. These conditions make it very important that the field be
located within a short distance of, and connected by good roads with the
point of delivery.
=Early maturing fruit.=--Where early maturity is the great desideratum
the exposure of the field is often very important. It should, first of
all, be such as to secure comparative freedom from spring frosts so as
to permit of early setting of the plants and the full benefit of the
sunshine as well as protection from cold winds. There is often a great
difference in these respects between fields quite near each other.
Professor Rolfs, of Florida, mentions a case where the tomatoes in a
field sloping to the southeast and protected on the north and west by a
strip of oak timber were uninjured by a spring frost that killed not
only all the plants in neighboring fields, but those in the same field
farther away from the protecting timber. Such spots should be sought out
and utilized, as often they can be used to great advantage. Immediate
proximity to large bodies of water is sometimes advantageous in the
South, but in the North it is often disadvantageous for early fruit
because of the chilling of the air and the increased danger of spring
frosts, although affording protection from those of early fall. Here,
too, proximity of field to shipping point and distance and
transportation rate to market are very important factors affecting
profit on the crop.
=The home garden.=--The south side of buildings or of tight fences and
walls often furnishes a most desirable place for garden tomatoes, but
the plants should be set at least 6 to 10 feet from the protection and
not so as to be trained upon or much shaded by them, as the disadvantage
of shutting off the light and circulation of the air, even from the
north, would more than overbalance anything gained by the protection.
=Growing under glass.=--In this country tomatoes are seldom grown under
glass except during the darker winter months and the exposure of the
house; the form of the roof and the method of glazing which will give
the greatest possible light, are of importance, for tomatoes can not be
profitably grown in a dark house. Just how the greatest amount of light
may be made available in any particular case will depend upon local
conditions, but every effort should be made to secure the most
unobstructed sunlight possible and for the greatest number of hours each
day.
=Previous crop and condition.=--In field culture tomatoes should not
follow tomatoes or potatoes. Both of these crops make use of large
quantities of potash, and although a small part of that used by the
plants is taken from the field in the crop, they inevitably reduce the
proportion of this element in the soil--that is, in such condition as to
be readily available for the succeeding crop. It is true that the
deficiency in potash may be supplied, but it is not so easy to supply it
in a condition in which it is possible for the roots of the tomato to
take it in. Unlike potatoes, tomatoes do not do well on new land,
whether it be newly cleared timber lands or new breaking of prairie.
Clover leaves the land in better condition for tomatoes than any other
of the commonly grown farm crops, while for second choice I prefer one
of peas, beans, corn, or wheat in the order named.
One of the most successful tomato growers I know of, whose soil is a
rich, dark clay loam, prepares for the crop, as follows: Very late in
the fall or early in the spring he gives a clover sod a heavy dressing
of manure and plows it under. In the spring he prepares the ground by
frequent cultivation and plants it with early sweet corn or summer
squash. At the time of the last cultivation of these crops he sows
clover seed, covering it with a cultivator having many small teeth, and
rarely fails to get a good stand and a good growth of young clover
before the ground freezes. In the spring he plows this under, running
the plow as deep as possible and following in the furrow with a
sub-soiler which stirs, but does not bring the sub-soil to the surface.
He then gives the field a heavy dressing with wood ashes and puts it
into the best possible tilth before planting his tomatoes. This grown
usually harvests at least 500 bushels to the acre and has made a crop of
over 1,000 bushels.
=Early market.=--In some sections of the South where the soil is light
and the growers depend almost wholly on the use of large quantities of
commercial fertilizer, they seem to meet with the best success by using
the same field for several successive crops, but in some places they
succeed best with plantings following a crop of cowpeas or other green
soiling crops plowed under, with a good dressing of lime.
CHAPTER VII
Fertilizers
The experiences and opinions of different gardeners and writers vary
greatly as to the amount and kind of fertilizer necessary for the
production of the maximum crop of tomatoes. If the question were as to
the growth of vine all would agree that the more fertilizer used and the
richer the soil, the better. Some growers act as if this were equally
true as to fruit, while others declare that one can easily use too much
fertilizer and get the ground too rich not only for a maximum but for a
profitable crop of fruit. I find that the amount an acre recommended by
successful growers varies from 40 tons of well-rotted stable manure,
supplemented by 1,000 pounds of complete fertilizer and 1,000 pounds of
unleached ashes, to one of only 300 pounds of potato fertilizer.
In my own experience the largest yield that I can recall was produced on
what would be called rich land, and the application of fertilizer for
the tomato crop was not in excess (unless possibly of potash) of that of
the usual annual dressing. I think that in preparing a soil for
tomatoes, as in selecting social acquaintances, the "new rich" are to be
avoided. A soil which is rich because of judicious manuring and careful
cropping for many years can scarcely be too rich, while one that is made
rich by a single application of fertilizer, no matter how well
proportioned, may give even a smaller yield of fruit because of its
excessive use. Again, the proportions of the various food elements vary
greatly in different locations.
Professor Halstead finds that in his section of New Jersey the liberal
use of nitrate of soda increases the yield and improves the quality,
while in some localities of New York, Ohio, and the West, growers find
that the yield of first-class fruit was actually lessened by its use. In
some sections of the South liberality in the use of phosphates
determines the amount and the quality of the crop, while at other points
it seems to be of little value. In my own experience the liberal
application of potash, particularly in the form of wood ashes, has more
often given good results than the application of any other special
fertilizer.
If called upon to name the exact quantity and kind of manure for
tomatoes, without any knowledge of the soil or its previous condition, I
would say 8 to 10 tons of good stable manure worked into the soil as
late as possible in the fall or during the winter and early spring and
300 to 600 pounds of commercial fertilizer, of such composition as to
furnish 2 per cent. nitrogen, 6 per cent. phosphoric acid and 8 per
cent. potash scattered and worked into the row about the time that the
plants are set. The use of a large proportion of nitrogen tends to rank
growth of vine and soft, watery fruit. The use of a large proportion of
phosphoric acid tends to produce soft fruit with less distinctly acid
flavor; of potash, to smaller growth of vine and firm but more acid
fruit.
I think that even more than with most crops it will be well for the
farmer to experiment to determine the best and most economical
fertilizer for his soil, setting aside five to ten plots of 1 to 4
square rods each and apply nitrate of soda, muriate of potash, wood,
ashes, and phosphate alone and in different combinations. The results
will suggest the combination which he can use to best advantage. In the
majority of cases, however, where the soil is reasonably rich,
expenditures for putting the ground in the best possible state of tilth
will give larger returns than those for manures in excess of that which
the land has usually received in the regular rotation for ordinary farm
crops.
=For the home garden.=--Usually a dressing of wood ashes up to a rate of
1 bushel to the square rod, well worked into the soil before the plants
are set, and occasionally watering with liquid manure, will generally
give the best returns of any special fertilization, it being assumed
that the garden has been well enriched with stable manure.
=Tomatoes under glass.=--Some growers recommend frequent waterings with
liquid manure; others a surface dressing of sheep manure; still others a
mulch of moderately well decayed stable manure. Plants growing under
glass, particularly in pots or boxes, seem to be benefitted by so heavy
a dressing that if applied to plants growing outside it would be likely
to give excessive growth of vine with but little fruit.
CHAPTER VIII
Preparation of the Soil
The proper preparation of the soil before setting the plants is one of
the most essential points in successful tomato culture. The soil should
be put into the best possible physical condition and to the greatest
practicable depth. How this can be best accomplished will vary greatly
with different soils and the facilities at the command of the planter.
My practice on a heavy, dry soil is to plow shallow as early in the
spring as the ground is fit to work, and then work and re-work the
surface so as to make it as fine as possible.
If I am to use any manure which is at all coarse, it is well worked in
at this time. A week or 10 days before I expect to set the plants I
again plow, and to as great a depth as practicable, without turning up
much of the sub-soil, and if this has not been done within two years,
follow in the furrows with a sub-soil plow which loosens, but does not
bring the sub-soil to the surface. Then I work and re-work the surface,
at the same time working in any dressing of well-rotted manure, ashes or
commercial fertilizer that I want to use. I never regret going over the
field again, if by so doing I can improve its condition in the least. On
a lighter soil it might be better to compact rather than loosen as much
as would give the best results with clay, but always and everywhere the
soil should be made fine, friable and uniform in condition, to the
greatest depth possible.
One of the most successful growers has said that if he could afford to
spend but two days' time on a patch of tomatoes he would use a day and a
half of the two days in fitting the ground before he set the plants. It
is my opinion that any working of the ground that serves to get it into
better mechanical condition, if done economically, will not only
increase the yield, but to such an extent as to lower the cost a bushel.
T. B. Terry's teaching of the necessity for working and re-working the
soil, if one would have the largest crops of potatoes of the best
quality, is even more applicable to the culture of tomatoes.
=Home garden.=--Here there is no excuse for setting plants in hard,
lumpy soil. It should be worked and re-worked, not simply once or twice,
but once or twice after it has been thoroughly worked. In short, the
tomato bed should be made as friable as it is possible to make it and to
as great a depth as the character of the sub-soil will permit.
=Under glass.=--I would strongly advise that soil for tomatoes, whether
it is to be used in solid beds or in pots or boxes, be thoroughly
sterilized by piling it not over 15 inches deep or wide over iron pipes
perforated with two lines of holes about one-sixteenth inch in diameter
and 2 inches apart and filled with steam for at least a half hour. It
can be sterilized, but far less effectively, by thorough wetting with
boiling water. It should always be well stirred and aired before the
plants are set in it.
=Starting plants.=--From about the latitude of New York city southward,
it is possible to secure large yields from plants grown from seed sown
in place in the field, and one often sees volunteer plants which have
sprung up as weeds carrying as much or more fruit than most carefully
grown transplanted ones beside them. In many sections tomatoes are grown
in large areas for canning factories, and as a farm rather than a market
garden crop, individual farmers planting from 10 to 100 acres; and to
start and transplant to the field the 25,000 to 30,000 plants necessary
for a ten-acre field seems a great undertaking. Tomato plants, however,
when young, are of rather weak and tender growth, and need more careful
culture than can be readily given in the open field; and, again, the
demand of the market, even at the canning factories, is for delivery of
the crop earlier than it can be produced by sowing the seed in the
field.
For these reasons it is almost the universal custom of successful
growers to use plants started under glass or in seed-beds where
conditions of heat and moisture can be somewhat under control. I
believe, however, that the failure to secure a maximum yield is more
often due to defective methods of starting, handling and setting the
plants than to any other single cause. In sections where tomatoes are
largely grown there are usually men who make a business of starting
plants and offering them for sale at prices running from $1 or even as
low as 40 cents, up to $8 and $10 a 1,000, according to their age and
the way they are grown; but generally, it will be found more
advantageous for the planter to start his plants on or near the field
where they are to be grown.
=Tomato plants from cuttings= may be easily grown, but such plants, when
planted in the open ground, do not yield as much fruit as seedlings nor
is this apt to be of so good quality; so that, in practice, seedlings
only are used for outside crops. Under glass, plants from cuttings do
relatively better and some growers prefer them, as they commence to
fruit earlier and do not make so rank a growth.
Seedlings can be most easily started and grown, at least up to the time
of pricking out, in light, well-ventilated greenhouses, and many large
growers have them for this specific purpose. Houses for starting tomato
plants should be so situated as to be fully exposed to the sun and not
shaded in any way; be provided with heating apparatus by which a night
temperature of 60 and up to one of 80° F. in the day can be maintained
even in the coldest weather and darkest days likely to occur for 60 to
90 days before the plants can be safely set out in the open field; and
the houses should be well glazed and ventilated.
Houses well suited for this purpose are often built of hotbed sash with
no frame but a simple ridge-board and sides 1 or 2 feet high, head room
being gained by a central sunken path and the sash so fastened in place
that they may be easily lifted to give ventilation or entirely removed
to give full exposure to sunshine, or for storing when the house is not
needed. Hotbed sash 3×6 feet with side-bars projecting at the ends to
facilitate fastening them in place are usually kept by dealers, who
offer them at from $1.50 to $3 each, according to the quality of the
material used.
A hot water heating apparatus is the best, but often one can use a
brick furnace or an iron heating stove, connected with a flue of sewer
or drain-pipe that will answer very well and cost much less. It requires
but 6 to 10 square feet of bench to start plants enough for an acre, and
a house costing only from $25 to $50 will enable one to grow plants
enough for 20 acres up to the stage when they can be pricked out into
sash or cloth-covered cold-frames in which they can be grown on to the
size best suited for setting in the field. When a grower plants less
than 5 acres it is often better for him to sow his seed in flats or
shallow boxes and arrange to have these cared for in some neighboring
greenhouse for the 10 to 20 days before they can be pricked out.
CHAPTER IX
Hotbeds and Cold-frames
Plants can be advantageously started and even grown on to the size for
setting in open ground in hotbeds. In building these of manure it is
important to select a spot where there is no danger of standing water,
even after the heaviest rains, and it is well to remove the soil to a
depth of 6 inches or 1 foot from a space about 2 feet larger each way
than the bed and to build the manure up squarely to a hight of 2 to 3
feet. It is also very important that the bed of manure be of uniform
composition as regards mixture of straw and also as to age, density and
moisture, so as to secure uniformity in heating. This can be
accomplished by shaking out and evenly spreading each forkful and
repeatedly and evenly tramping down as the bed is built up. Unless this
work is well and carefully done the bed will heat and settle unevenly,
making it impossible to secure uniformity of growth in different parts.
Hotbed frames should be of a size to carry four to six 3×6-foot sash,
and made of lumber so fastened together that they can be easily knocked
apart and stored when not in use. They should be about 10 inches high in
front and 16 or 18 inches at the back, care being taken that if the back
is made of two boards one of them be narrow and at the bottom so that
the crack between them can be covered by banking up with manure or
earth. In placing them on the manure short pieces of board should be
laid under the corners to prevent their settling in the manure unevenly.
I prefer to sow the seed in flats or shallow boxes filled with rich but
sandy and very friable soil, and set these on a layer of sifted coal
ashes covering the manure and made perfectly level, but many growers sow
on soil resting directly on the manure; if this is done the soil should
be light and friable and made perfectly level. A perspective view of a
three-sash hotbed is given in Fig. 13, and of a cross-section in Fig.
14.
[Illustration: FIG. 13--THREE-SASH HOTBED]
In some sections, particularly in the South, it is not always easy to
procure suitable manure for making hotbeds, so these are built to be
warmed by flues under ground, but I think it much better where a fire is
to be used that the sash be built into the form of a house. A hotbed of
manure is preferred to a house by some because of its supplying uniform
and moist bottom heat--and one can easily give abundant air; but the
sash can be built into the form of a house at but little more expense,
and it has the great advantage of enabling one to work among the plants
in any weather, while, if properly built, any desired degree of heat and
ventilation can be easily secured. Except when very early ripening fruit
is the desideratum, plants started with heat but pricked out and grown
in cold-frames without it, but where they can be protected during cold
nights and storms, will give better results than those grown to full
size for the field in artificial heat.
[Illustration: FIG. 14--CROSS-SECTION OF HOTBED]
[Illustration: FIG. 15--COLD-FRAMES ON HILL-SIDE]
=Cold-frames.=--In locations where tomatoes are much grown large areas
are devoted to cold-frames covered either by sash or cloth curtains.
Sash give much better protection from cold and on this account are more
desirable, particularly where very early fruiting is wanted, but their
first cost is much greater and the labor of attending to beds covered by
them is much more than where cloth is used. Sash-covered beds should be
of single width and run east and west, but if the beds are covered with
cloth it is better that they be double width (12 feet) and run north and
south. The front of the single and the sides of the double width beds
should be 8 to 10 inches high, held firmly erect by stakes and perfectly
parallel, both horizontally and vertically, with the back or with the
central support. This should be 6 inches higher than the front. The
cross strips, when sash are used, should be made of a 3-inch horizontal
and a 1-1/2-inch vertical strip of 1-inch lumber nailed together very
firmly in the form of an inverted T, the vertical pieces projecting 1
inch at each end and resting on the front and back of the bed and
forming supports and guides for the sash. Some growers use vertical
strips as heavy as 2×3 or 4 inches for stepping across the beds. When
the plants are to be taken to the field, the sash and guides can be
easily removed. (Fig. 15.)
Ground to be covered with cold-frames should be made very friable and
rich by repeated plowing and working in of a liberal dressing of
well-rotted stable manure and wood ashes. In southwestern New Jersey,
where immense areas of early tomatoes are grown, the soil of the beds
for a depth of about 6 inches is removed and a layer 3 to 5 inches deep
of well-rotted stable manure is placed in. That made of a mixture of
manure from horses, cattle and hogs is preferred. It is important that
the manure be so well rotted that it will not heat, and so dry that it
will not become pasty when tramped into a firm, level layer. On this
they place a layer of nearly 3 inches deep of rich, friable, moderately
compact soil and prick out the plants into this. The roots soon bind the
manure and soil together and by cutting through the manure so as to form
blocks one can carry the plants to the fields with but very little
disturbance of the root.
=Cloth covers for beds= should be made of heavy, unbleached sheeting or
light duck, and it is better that the selvage run up and down the bed
rather than lengthwise. The cloth is torn into lengths of about 13 feet
and then sewn together with a narrow double-stitched flat seam so as to
form a sheet 13 feet wide and about 8 inches longer than the bed. The
edges are tacked every foot to the strips about 2 inches wide by 7/8
inch thick with beveled outside edges and laid perfectly in line. A
second line of strips is then nailed to the first so as to break joints
with it and so that the two will form a continuous roller about a foot
longer than the bed with the edge of the curtain firmly fastened in its
center. The center of the curtain is secured to the central ridge of the
bed by strips of lath. When rolled up, the rollers are held in place by
loops of rope around their ends and when they are down they are held by
similar loops to the notched tent-pins driven into the ground or to
wooden buttons fastened to the sides and ends of the frame as shown in
Fig. 16.
[Illustration: FIG. 16--TRANSPLANTING TOMATOES UNDER CLOTH-COVERED
FRAMES (Photo by Prof. W. G. Johnson)]
Cloth covers are sometimes dressed with oil, but this is not to be
recommended, though it is an advantage to have them wet occasionally
with a weak solution of copper sulphate or with sea water as a
preservative and to prevent mildew. Such covers, well cared for, may
last five years or be of little use after the first, depending upon the
care given them. They can be made from 50 to 200 feet long and two men
can roll them up or down very quickly.
When cloth covers are used the supporting cross-strips should not be
over 3 inches wide nor more than 3 feet apart; sometimes the strips are
made to bind the sideboard and ridge together by means of short pieces
of hoop iron or of barrel hoop. These are so placed and nailed as to
hold the upper edge of sideboards and of the central ridge flush with
the cross-strips, thus forming a smooth surface for cloth to rest on and
enabling one easily to "knock down" and remove the frames to facilitate
the taking of the plants from the bed to the field and the storing of
the frames for another season.
=Flats for starting seeds.=--Any shallow box may be used or the plants
sown directly in the beds without them, but flats of a uniform size are
to be preferred--these will pack well on the greenhouse shelves; or in
the hotbed we make them with 7/8 inch thick ends and 1/2 inch thick
sides and bottom, the latter if of a single board having four half-inch
holes for drainage and in any case having two narrow strips about 1/4
inch thick nailed across their bottoms so as to allow drainage water to
escape freely when the boxes are set on hard, cool floors. Two or three
such boxes, 35-1/2 inches long, 12 inches wide and 3 inches deep, will
be sufficient to start plants enough for an acre. I like to use similar
boxes only 4 inches deep for growing the plants after they are pricked
out, particularly if this is to be done in a greenhouse, as by turning
them we can equalize exposure to light and thus distribute the plants in
the field where they are to be set with the least possible disturbance.
One would need nearly 60 such boxes for plants enough for an acre. On
account of the lessened necessity for watering when plants are set in
beds rather than in boxes, many growers prefer to grow their plants in
that way.
CHAPTER X
Starting Plants
This has been the subject of a vast amount of horticultural writing, and
the practice of different growers, and in different sections, varies
greatly. I give the methods I have used successfully, together with
reasons for following them, but it may be well for the reader to modify
them to suit his own conditions and requirements.
=Largest yield.=--Some 45 to 50 days before plants can be safely set in
the open field the flats in which the seed is to be sown should be
filled with light, rich, friable soil, it being important that its
surface be made perfectly level, and that it be compact and quite moist,
but not so wet as to pack under pressure. Sow the seed in drills 3/8
inch deep and 2 to 3 inches apart at the rate of 10 to 20 to the inch;
press the soil evenly over them, water and place in the shade in an even
temperature of 80 to 90° F. As soon as the seeds begin to break soil,
which they should do in three to four days, place in full light and
temperature of 75 to 80°, keeping the air rather close so as to avoid
necessity of watering. After a few days reduce the temperature to about
65° and give as much air as possible. Some growers press a short piece
of 2-inch joist into the soil of the benches, so as to form trenches 2
inches wide and about 3/8 inch deep, and so spaced as to be under the
center of each row of glass, their sash being mostly made of five-inch
glass. In this, by using a little tin box with holes in the top, like
those of a pepper-box, they scatter seeds so that they will be nearly
1/8 to 1/4 inch apart, over the bottom of the 2-inch wide trench, and
then cover. This has the advantage of evenly spacing the plants and so
locating the rows that the plants will be little liable to injury from
drip.
Young tomato plants are very sensitive to over-supply of water and some
of the most successful growers do not water at all until the plants are
quite large and then only when necessary to prevent wilting. In 10 to 15
days, or as soon as the central bud is well started, the plants should
be pricked out, setting them 3 to 6 inches apart, according to the size
we expect them to reach before they go into the field; 5 inches is the
most common distance used. I think it better to set the full distance
apart at first, not to transplant a second time. It is very important
that this pricking out should be done when the plants are young and
small, though many successful growers wait until they are larger. The
soil in which they are set, whether it be in boxes or beds, should be
composed of about three parts garden loam, two parts well-rotted stable
manure and one part of an equal mixture of sand and leaf mold, though
the proportion of sand used should be increased if the garden loam is
clayey. The soil in the seed-boxes or in the beds, when the seedlings
are taken up, should be in such condition, and the plants be handled in
such a way that nearly all the roots, carrying with them many particles
of soil, are saved. The plants should be set a little, and but a little,
deeper than they stood in the seed-box and the soil so pressed about
the roots, particularly at their lower end, that the plants can not be
easily pulled out.
[Illustration: FIG. 17--SPOTTING-BOARD FOR USE IN COLD-FRAMES]
Where plants are set in beds the work can be facilitated by the use of a
"spotting-board" (Fig. 17). This should be about 1 foot in width, and
have pegs about 3 inches long, 3/4 inch in diameter at the base and
tapering to a point, fastened into the board the distance apart the
plants are to be set. It should also have narrow projections carrying a
single peg nailed to the top of board at each end, so that when these
pegs are placed in the end holes of the last row the first row of pegs
in the "spotting board" will be the right distance from the last row of
holes or plants. By standing on this, while setting plants in one set of
holes, holes for another set are formed. If the conditions of soil, air
and plants are right and the work is well done, the plants will show
little tendency to wilt, and it is better to prevent their doing so by
shading, rather than by watering, though the latter should be resorted
to if necessary. When plants are set in beds, some growers remove the
soil to a depth of about 6 inches and put in a layer of about 2 inches
of sifted coal ashes, made perfectly level, and then replace the soil.
This confines the roots to the surface and enables one to secure nearly
all of them when transplanting. The plants should be well established
in 24 hours and after this the more light and air that can be given,
without the temperature falling below 40° F. or subjecting the plants to
cold, dry wind, the better.
[Illustration: FIG. 18--SPOTTING-BOARD FOR USE ON FLAT (From W. G.
Johnson)]
One can hardly overstate the importance to the healthy growth of the
young tomato plant of abundant sunshine, a uniform day temperature of
from 60 to 80° F., or of the ill effects of a variable temperature,
particularly if it be the result of cold, dry winds, or of a wet, soggy
soil, the effect of over-watering. These points should be kept in mind
in caring for the plants, and every effort made to secure, as far as
possible, the first named conditions and to avoid the latter. The
frames, whether they be covered with sash or cloth, but more
particularly if with sash in sunshine and with curtains in dull days,
should be opened so as to prevent their becoming too hot, and so as to
admit air. And in a greenhouse full ventilation should be given
whenever it is possible to do so without exposure to too low a
temperature. If the plants are in boxes and on greenhouse shelves, it is
important that these be turned end for end every few days to equalize
exposure to light and give full exposure to the sun. The plants should
be watered only when necessary to prevent wilting, and the beds should
be covered during heavy rains. A "spotting-board" for use on flats is
seen in Fig. 18.
The most unfavorable weather conditions are bright sun combined with a
cold wind, and cold storms of drizzling rain and frosty nights. Loss
from the latter cause may often be prevented by covering the beds with
coarse straw, which should always be provided for use in an emergency.
Many growers provide a second curtain--an old one answers very well--to
throw over the straw-covered beds. Beds so covered will protect the
plants from frost in quite severe weather. Watering should especially be
avoided for nearly three days before setting in fields; but six to
twelve hours before it is well to water thoroughly, though not so as to
make the soil at all muddy. About five days after pricking out and again
about five days before the plants are to go into the field and five days
after they are set, they should be sprayed with Bordeaux mixture.
=Early ripening fruit.=--Here the aim is to secure, by the time they can
be set in the field, plants which have come by an unchecked but
comparatively slow rate of growth to the greatest size and maturity
consistent with the transplanting to the field without too serious a
check. The methods by which this is accomplished vary greatly and
generally differ materially from those given above. The seed is planted
much earlier and 60 to 90 days before it is at all safe to set plants in
the open field; while a steady rate of growth is desirable, it should be
slow and the plants kept small by a second and even third and fourth
transplanting, and especial care taken to avoid the soft and irregular
growth resulting from over-watering or over-heating. Any side shoots
which may appear should be pinched out and a full pollination of the
first cluster of the blossoms secured, either by direct application of
pollen or by staking or jarring the plants on bright days; and finally,
special efforts made to set the plants in the field as early and with as
little check as possible. Growers are often willing to run considerable
risk of frost for the sake of early setting.
When one has sandy land a very profitable crop can sometimes be secured
by sowing the seed very early, and growing the plants on in beds until
the first cluster of fruit is set, then heeling them in, much as nursery
trees are, but so close that they can be quickly covered in case of
frost. As soon as it is at all safe to do so, they are set in the open
ground, very closely, on the south side of ridges, so that only the
upper one-third of the plant is exposed, the remainder being laid nearly
level and covered with earth.
So treated the plants will ripen the upper one or two clusters very
early but will yield little more until late in the season, and it is
generally more profitable to plow them up and put in some other crop as
soon as the first clusters of fruit have ripened. Others pinch out the
central bud as soon as it is well formed, usually within 10 days from
the sowing of the seed. When this is done a great proportion of the
plants will start branches from the axils of the cotyledons; these
usually develop blossoms in the third to the fifth node and produce
fruit much lower than in a normal plant. It is questionable if there is
any gain in time from seed to fruit by this method, but it enables one
to get older plants of a size which it is practicable to transplant to
the field.
In most cases it will be found more profitable and satisfactory so to
grow the plants that by the time they can be safely set out of doors
they will be in vigorous condition, about 6 to 10 inches tall, stout,
healthy and well hardened off. Such plants will ripen fruit nearly, and
often quite as early as older ones and will produce a constant
succession of fruit, instead of ripening a single cluster or two and
then no more until they have made a new growth.
=For late summer and early fall.=--It is generally true in the South and
often equally so in the North, that there is a more eager local demand
for tomatoes in the late summer and fall months, after most of the
spring set plants have ceased bearing, than in early summer. In Michigan
I have often been able to get more for choice fruit in late October and
in November than the best Floridas were sold for in May or early June,
and certainly in the South the home use of fresh tomatoes should not be
confined to spring set plants. For the fall crop in the South seed may
be sown in late spring or up to the middle of July, in beds shaded with
frames, covered with lath nailed 3 to 4 inches apart and the plants set
in the field about 40 days from sowing, the same care being taken to
put the ground into good condition as is recommended for the spring
planted crop.
A second plan, which has sometimes given most excellent results, is to
cut back spring set plants which have ripened some fruit but which are
not completely exhausted, to mere stubs, and spade up the ground about
them so as to cut most of the roots, water thoroughly and cover the
ground with a mulch of straw. Most of the plants so treated will start a
new and vigorous growth and give most satisfactory returns.
=Fruit at least expenditure of labor.=--When this is the great
desideratum, many growers omit the hotbed and even the pricking out,
sowing the seed as early as they judge the plants will be safe from
frost, and broadcast, either in cold-frames or in uncovered beds, at the
rate of 50 to 150 to the square foot and transplanting directly to the
field. Or they may be advantageously sown in broad drills either by the
use of the pepper-box arrangement suggested on page 60, or a garden
drill adjusted to sow a broad row. In Maryland and the adjoining states,
as well as in some places in the West, most of the plants for crops for
the canners are grown in this way and at a cost of 40 cents or even less
a 1,000. The seed should be sown so that it will be from 1/4 to 1/2 inch
apart and the plants thinned as soon as they are up so that they will be
at least 1/2 inch apart. Where seed is sown early with no provision for
protection from the frost it is always well to make other sowings as
soon as the last begins to break ground in order to furnish reserve
plants, if the earlier sown lots be destroyed by frost. Others even sow
the seed in place in the field, thinning out to a single one in a hill
when the plants are about 2 inches high. Some of the largest yields I
have ever known have been raised in this way, but the fruit is late in
maturing and generally the method is not so satisfactory as starting the
plants where they can be given some protection, and transplanting them
to the field.
=Plants for the home garden.=--These may be grown in pots or boxes set
in the sunniest spot available and treated as has been described. In
this way plants, equal to any, may be grown without the aid of either
hotbed or greenhouse. It will generally be more satisfactory, however,
to secure the dozen or two plants needed from some one who has grown
them in quantity than to grow so small a lot by themselves. In selecting
plants, take those which are short, stiff, hard, and dark green in
color with some purple color on the lower part of the stem rather than
those which are softer and of a brighter green, or those in which the
foliage is of a yellowish green; but in selection it must be remembered
that varieties differ as to the color of foliage, so that there may be a
difference in shade which is not due to conditions.
=Plants under glass.=--If to be grown in pots or boxes, "prick out,"
when small, into three-inch pots and as they grow re-pot several times
so that when set in the pots or beds in which they are to fruit, they
are stout plants 12 to 16 inches high. Plants propagated from cuttings
give much better returns relatively under glass than out of doors.
CHAPTER XI
Proper Distance for Planting
The best distance apart for the plants to be set in the field varies
greatly with the soil, the variety, the methods of cultivation and other
conditions. Plants set as close in rich clay soil as would give the best
results in a warm, sandy one, or those of a strong growing sort, like
Buckeye State, set as close as would be desirable for sorts, like
Atlantic Prize or Dwarf Champion, would give little but leaves and
inferior fruit. In field culture I like to space the plants so as to
facilitate gathering the fruit, and recommend the following arrangement:
Set the plants according to soil and the variety 2-1/2 to 4 feet apart
in the row, omitting two or three in every 75 or 100 plants so as to
form driveways across the rows. Set the first and second and the third
and fourth rows, etc., 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 and the second and third and the
fourth and fifth rows 5-1/2 to 6 feet apart. As the plants grow, those
of the first and second and those of the third and fourth rows, etc.,
are thrown together and in many cases it will pay to have a pair of
narrow horizontal strips or wires nearly 18 inches from the ground upon
which they can be thrown.
This arrangement of the plants allows us to continue to cultivate the
wider spaces between the second and third and fourth and fifth, etc.,
rows, much longer, and tends to confine the necessary tramping and
packing of the soil when gathering the fruit chiefly to these rows--an
important point in case the soil is wet. The rows can be marked out the
day before, but it is better to set the plants in the cross-rows and
that these be marked out just ahead of the setters. In this arrangement
the distances are equivalent to from 2-1/2×4 feet, requiring 4,300
plants to the acre, to 4×5 feet, requiring but about 2,100 plants. The
latter distance is that most commonly used by New Jersey growers.
[Illustration: FIG. 19--TOMATOES SOWN AND ALLOWED TO GROW IN HOTBEDS]
=In the home garden.=--It will usually be more satisfactory to give each
plant plenty of space, setting them 5 or 6 feet apart each way, except
in the case of the dwarf sorts, which should be from 3-1/2 to 3 feet
apart. A few plants at these distances will usually be much more
satisfactory than more set nearer together, but the larger growing
sorts should have at least 3 feet and the dwarf sorts 2 feet. When one
has a hotbed or cold-frame it is often an advantage to set a row of
tomato plants nearly 18 inches apart at the back end much earlier than
they could be safely set in the open ground, and if these are allowed to
grow on in place, as shown in Fig. 19, being pruned and tied to stakes,
they will give some very early fruit.
=In the greenhouse.=--Experience and practice differ as to the most
desirable distance apart for plants under glass. But 2 feet apart, where
quality is the main consideration, and 18 inches when quantity, if fair,
is of more importance than extra quality.
=Setting plants in the field.=--The economical and successful setting of
plants in the field is an important element of successful tomato culture
and is very dependent upon soil and weather conditions. It is assumed
that the soil of the field has been put into the best possible condition
of tilth, but its condition as to moisture is also very important. The
worst condition is when it is wet and muddy, especially if it is at all
clayey--not only is the cost of setting greatly increased, but plants
set in such soil can seldom, by any amount of care, be made to do well,
especially if a heavy beating rain or dry windy weather follows
immediately; the condition is less unfavorable if a warm gentle rain or
still moist weather follows. A dry cold wind, even if the day is cloudy
and the soil in good condition, is also unfavorable, particularly if the
roots of the plants are exposed.
Wet soil, cold, dry air and wind are the conditions to be avoided.
Moist, not wet, soil and still, warm air are to be desired; whether the
day is sunny or not is less important. There is a certain definite time,
which does not usually extend beyond a few days, when any lot of plants
is in the best condition for setting in the field. It is hardly possible
to describe this condition more than to say it is when the plants are as
large as they can be without crowding and are in a state where they can
best stand the shock of removal.
It will always be a matter of judgment as to how long it is best to hold
plants, which are in condition for setting, for favorable weather
conditions. They can sometimes be held a few days, by scant watering and
full exposure, or in some cases by taking from the bed and heeling in,
as nurserymen do trees; but it is better to set when the weather is
unfavorable or to run some risk from frost rather than to hold them in
this way too long. The wise selection of time for setting is an
important factor in securing a good and profitable crop.
The South Jersey growers, to whom early ripening fruit is the great
desideratum and who have a very warm soil, and grow plants so they are
quite hardy and can be transplanted with little check, set them in the
field very early, some seasons by the last of April; and if the plants
can be got out so as to have two or three days of favorable weather to
get established before it comes, they seem to be little hurt even by a
quite severe frost. The first essential to successful transplanting is
to have well-grown, healthy, hardy plants; the second is that they be in
good condition for setting, which can be secured by giving them, for a
few days before planting, a scant supply of water and fullest possible
exposure to air and sun, and then a thorough wetting a few hours before
they are to be set.
The South Jersey plan of growing and setting plants gets them into the
field in the best condition of any method I know. Two to five days
before they expect to plant, the growers go over the beds and, by means
of a hoe that has been straightened and sharpened to form a sort of
spade, they cut through the soil and manure so as to divide the plants
into blocks of six. A few hours before they are to plant, they saturate
the bed with water. By means of a flattened shovel they can take up the
blocks of plants and place them in a cart or low wagon so the soil is
scarcely disturbed at all, the roots in the manure serving to bind the
whole together. In the meantime furrows are opened along the rows and
the cart driven to the field; the plants in the blocks are cut apart
with a butcher knife placed in the furrow and the earth drawn about
them.
Plants set in this way often do not wilt at all, even in hot sunshine.
When plants are grown in boxes these can be taken to the field and
plants taken from them in much the same way and so that they will be
disturbed but little. In setting the plants it should always be borne in
mind that while sunshine on the leaves of a plant rarely does any
injury, it is very injurious to the roots, and the exposure of the roots
to the sun or to cold, dry wind, should be avoided in every practicable
way, such as by carrying the plants to the field laid on the sides of a
box, which is then carried with its bottom toward the sun so as to have
the plants in the shade, always handling the plant in the shade of one's
body, etc. It is well worth while to walk to the end of the row to
commence work in order to secure this. It is attention to such details
that distinguishes one whose plants nearly always do well from one who
loses a large proportion of those he handles.
=Fruit at the least expenditure of labor.=--The plants are prepared for
setting by scant watering, and are taken up so as to secure as much root
as possible with little soil adhering to them. Great care should be
taken in taking the plants from the bed, and in handling them, _to avoid
twisting the stems_, as to do so very seriously injures the plants,
often to such an extent that they will fail to grow, no matter how
carefully set out. Some growers dip the roots in a very thin clay mud,
hardly thicker than thin cream, but I have not found this of advantage
except, sometimes, when the roots are to be exposed for a longer period
than usual and I do not recommend it for general use. In setting, holes
are made either with a long dibble, in the hands of the one who
distributes the plants, or by a short one, in the hands of the setter;
the plants are dropped into them a little deeper than they had stood in
the bed, the earth closed about the roots, by pressure from the side.
Especial care should be taken that this is well done, particularly at
the bottom; the earth should be so firmly pressed to the root that the
plant cannot be easily pulled from the soil. In some sections
transplanting machines (Fig. 20) are used and liked, but most planters
prefer to set by hand and the additional cost is not great. An expert
with one or two boys to assist in handling the plants can put out as
many as 5,000 plants in a day. A machine requiring more help to run it
can set from 15,000 to 20,000.
=In the home garden=, when but a few plants are to be set, it will be
better to put them in after 4 P. M. and use water in setting, but the
wet soil should be covered with some dry earth to prevent its caking.
=In the greenhouse.=--Plants are better set in the places where they are
to fruit just before their first blossoms open and should be set in
accordance with the suggestions given for transplanting to the field.
[Illustration: FIG. 20--PLANTING TOMATOES ON A DELAWARE FARM (Photo by
courtesy of _American Agriculturist_)]
CHAPTER XII
Cultivation
=For maximum crop.=--As soon as plants are set the ground should be well
cultivated to the greatest depth practicable. We should remember that
the tomato needs for its best development a very friable soil, while the
tramping necessary in setting out the plants and gathering the fruit
tends to compact and harden the soil. Often transplanting has to be done
when the soil is wet, and we need to counteract the injury from tramping
by immediate cultivation; but, at the same time, we must avoid the
disturbing of the plants any more than is necessary, and all of our
cultivation should be done with these points in mind. Just how it can be
done best will vary not only with the location and the facilities
available, but with the weather conditions, so that it is not well to
attempt to give explicit directions any further than that one can hardly
cultivate too deeply for the first seven days nor too often for the
first 30 days after the plants are set, provided he avoids turning the
soil when it is too wet. Even walking through the field when the soil is
wet is injurious and should be avoided, in proportion as the soil is a
clayey one.
=At least expenditure of labor.=--I hardly need add to or change the
suggestions given above for tomatoes at least cost, for any cultivation
wisely given will probably do as much to reduce cost per bushel by
increasing the yield per acre as any other expenditure. _In the garden_
it is advisable that from the time the plants are set until the fruit
ripens, the surface soil about them be stirred every evening when it is
not actually wet.
=In the greenhouse.=--The surface of the soil should be kept open by
frequent stirring or, as is the practice of some successful growers, it
may be covered with a mulch of partially rotted manure. The plants
should be watered only as needed to prevent wilt, and special pains
taken to guard against too much moisture either in the soil or in the
air, particularly on dark days. The night temperature should be
uniformly about 60° F. while in the day it should be 75°, and if it be
bright and sunny it may go to 90° or even higher. Air should be given
freely whenever feasible to do so without too greatly reducing
temperature. A moderate degree of moisture should be maintained in the
air, care being taken that it does not become too moist, especially
during dark days. There is more danger from the air becoming too moist
than from its becoming too dry, though either extreme is injurious.
=Pollinating.=--The structure and relations of the parts of the tomato
flower are such that while perfect pollination is possible, and in
plants grown in the open air usually takes place without artificial
assistance, it is not so likely to occur when plants are grown under
glass, particularly in the winter months, and it is usually necessary to
secure it by artificial means. With vigorous, healthy plants and on
light, sunny days, it can be accomplished by jarring the plants near
midday. This generally throws enough pollen into the air so that an
abundance of it reaches each receptive stigma. With less vigorous plants
and on dark days it is necessary to hand pollinate the flowers. This is
done by gathering the pollen by means of jarring the plants, so that it
falls into a watch crystal or other receptacle secured at the end of a
wand, and then pressing the projecting pistils of other flowers into it
so that they may become covered with the pollen.
Some growers transfer the pollen with a camel's-hair-brush; others by
pulling off the corolla and adhering anthers and rubbing them over the
stigma of other flowers. Fruit rarely follows flowers that are not
pollinated, and if it is incomplete the fruit will be unsymmetrical and
imperfectly developed. As tomato flowers secrete but very little, if
any, honey and are not attractive to insects, it is of no advantage to
confine a hive of bees in the tomato house in the way which is so useful
in one where cucumbers or melons are growing.
CHAPTER XIII
Staking, Training and Pruning
Under favorable conditions of soil and climate, plants of most varieties
of tomatoes will, in field culture, yield as much fruit if allowed to
grow naturally and unpruned as if trained and pruned. This is especially
true of the sorts of the Earliana type and on warm, sandy soils, while
it may not be true of the stronger growing sorts, or on rich clay lands
or where the fertilizer used contains an excess of nitrogen. In any case
more fruit can be grown to the acre on pruned and staked plants because
more of them can be gotten on an acre; and it is an advantage to grow
them in that way because it enables us, by later cultivation, to keep
the ground in good tilth longer; also it facilitates the gathering of
the fruit; and last, but not least, it generally enables us to produce
better ripened and flavored fruit.
Staking and pruning used to be the almost universal practice in the
South, but in many sections growers have abandoned it, claiming that
they get as good or better results without it. In the North it is rarely
used in field culture, though often used in private gardens and by some
market gardeners, and both staking or tying up and pruning are essential
to the profitable growing of tomatoes under glass. In the South, stout
stakes from 1 to 2 inches in diameter and 4 to 5 feet long are driven
into the ground so that they can be depended upon to hold the plants
erect through the heaviest storms, as seen in Fig. 21. This is generally
and wisely done as soon as the plant is set, though some growers delay
doing so until the fruit is well set, claiming that the disturbance of
staking, tying and pruning tends to hasten the ripening of the fruit.
The plant is then tied up, the tying material being wrapped once about
the stake and then looped about the plant so as to prevent slipping on
the stake or choking the stem of the plant as it enlarges. Raffia is
largely used and is one of the best tying materials, but short pieces of
any soft, cheap string can be used. The tying up will need to be
repeated as the stem elongates, which it will do very rapidly.
In pruning the tomato we should allow the central shoot of the young
plant to grow, and remove all of the side shoots which spring from the
axils of the leaves and sometimes even from the fruit clusters, as seen
in Fig. 22. It is very desirable that this be done when the branches are
small, as there is then less danger of seriously disturbing the balance
of the growing forces of the plant, and also because there is less
danger of careless workmen cutting off the main shoot in place of a
lateral, which would seriously check the ripening of the fruit. It is
especially important that any shoots springing from the fruit cluster be
removed as early as possible. For these reasons it is important that, if
the plants are to be pruned at all, the field be gone over every few
days. If the pruning is not well done it is a disadvantage rather than a
help.
[Illustration: FIG. 21--TRAINING TOMATOES IN FLORIDA TO SINGLE STAKE
(Photo by courtesy of Prof. P. H. Rolfs, Director Florida Experiment
Station)]
[Illustration: FIG. 22--TOMATO PLANT TRAINED TO SINGLE STAKE]
[Illustration: FIG. 23--METHOD OF TRAINING TO THREE STEMS IN
FORCING-HOUSE AND OUT OF DOORS]
Some growers allow two or three (Fig. 23) instead of one shoot to grow,
selecting for the second the most vigorous of the shoots starting from
below the first cluster of fruit. In some locations they stop or pinch
out the main shoot just above the first leaf above the third or fourth
cluster; in some soils it is an advantage and in others rather a
disadvantage to do this. I have seldom practiced it. When fruit at the
lowest cost a bushel is the desideratum, neither pruning nor staking is
desirable.
[Illustration: FIG. 24--METHOD OF TRAINING ON LINE IN GREENHOUSE]
[Illustration: FIG. 25--READY TO TRANSPLANT IN GREENHOUSE (Redrawn from
photo by New York Experiment Station)]
[Illustration: FIG. 26--TRAINING YOUNG TOMATOES IN GREENHOUSE AT NEW
YORK EXPERIMENT STATION (Photo by courtesy Prof. U. P. Hedrick)]
=For home gardens.=--In the home garden trellising and pruning are often
very desirable, as they enable us not only to produce more fruit in a
given area but of better quality. Many forms of trellis, have been
recommended. Where the plants are to be pruned as well as supported, as
they should always be in gardens, there is nothing better than the
single stake, as described above. For a trellis without pruning, one
to three stout hoops supported by three stakes so as to surround the
plant which is allowed to grow through and fall over them, or two or
more parallel strips supported about a foot from the ground on each side
of a row of plants answer the purpose, which is simply to keep the plant
up from the ground and facilitate the free circulation of the air among
leaves and fruit.
[Illustration: FIG. 27--TOMATOES IN GREENHOUSE AT OHIO EXPERIMENT
STATION (Photo by courtesy of C. W. Waid)]
I have seen tomatoes grown very successfully by the side of an open
fence. Two stakes were driven into the ground about 6 inches from the
fence and the plant, but slanting outward and away from each other. The
tops of the stakes were fastened to the fence by wooden braces, and then
heavy strings fastened to the fence around the stakes and back to the
fence, the whole with the fence forming a sort of inverted pyramidal
vase about 3 feet across at the top. In this the plant was allowed to
grow, but it would be essential to success that the fence be an open
one.
[Illustration: FIG. 28--FORCING TOMATOES IN GREENHOUSE AT NEW HAMPSHIRE
EXPERIMENT STATION. NOTE CHARACTER OF BED ON THE GROUND FLOOR. (Photo by
courtesy of Prof. H. F. Hall)]
=In the greenhouse.=--Here pruning and training are essential. The
plants may be supported by wires or strings (a coarse wool twine will
answer), twisting the string about the plant as it grows. The growth is
usually confined to a single shoot, though some growers allow two (Fig.
24); the method of pruning does not differ from that given for field
culture, but it is more important that the plants be gone over often
and the branches removed when small. If allowed to do so, branches would
spring from the axil of each leaf and the plant would become a perfect
thicket of slender branches and leaves and produce but little fruit. The
main stem is sometimes pinched out after three or four clusters of fruit
are set and the branch from the axil of the first leaf above is allowed
to take its place. This tends to hasten the maturing of the fruit
clusters already set. After several clusters have matured, or the main
stem reaches the top of the house, some growers allow a shoot from the
bottom to grow and as soon as fruit sets on it the first stem is cut
away and this takes its place. Others prefer to remove the old plant
entirely and set in young ones. A plant ready for transplanting is shown
in Fig. 25. In figures 26, 27 and 28 are shown interior views of
greenhouses at the New York station at Geneva, the Ohio station at
Wooster, and the New Hampshire station at Durham. Note the strong,
vigorous plants in Fig. 26; the method of utilizing tile for watering in
Fig. 27; and the ground-floor bedding in Fig. 28.
CHAPTER XIV
Ripening, Gathering, Handling and Marketing the Fruit
Tomatoes ripen and color from within outward and they will acquire full
and often superior color, particularly about the stems, if, as soon as
they have acquired full size and the ripening process has fairly
commenced, they are picked and spread out in the sunshine. The point of
ripeness when they can be safely picked is indicated by the surface
color changing from a dark green to one of distinctly lighter shade with
a very light tinge of pink. Fruit picked in this stage of maturity may
be wrapped in paper and shipped 1,000 or 2,000 miles and when unwrapped
after two or ten days' journey will be found to have acquired a
beautiful color, often even more brilliant than that of a companion
fruit left on the vine. Enclosing the fruit while on the vine and about
half grown in paper bags has been recommended, and it often results in
deeper and more even coloring and prevents injury from cracking, but the
fruit so ripened, while more beautiful, is not so well flavored as that
ripened in the sun. But Americans are said to taste with their eyes, so
that in this country, fruit of this beautiful color will often out-sell
that which is of better flavor though of duller color.
The tomato never acquires its full and most perfect flavor except when
ripened on the vine and in full sunlight. Vine and sun-ripened
tomatoes, like tree-ripened peaches, are vastly better flavored than
those artificially ripened. This is the chief reason why tomatoes grown
in hothouses in the vicinity are so much superior to those shipped in
from farther south. After it has come to its most perfect condition on
the plant the fruit deteriorates steadily, whether gathered or allowed
to remain on the vine, and the more rapidly in proportion as the air is
hot and moist. That it be fresh is hardly less essential to the first
quality in a tomato than it is to such things as lettuce and cucumbers.
=Gathering.=--As is the case with most horticultural products, the best
methods of gathering, handling and marketing the fruit vary greatly with
the conditions under which the fruit was grown and how it is to be used,
and it requires the best of judgment to gather it in the stage of
maturity in which it will give the best satisfaction, under the
conditions and for the purposes for which it is to be used. It is
impossible to give exact rules for determining when the fruit is in the
best condition. This can only be learned by experience, guided by a
knowledge of the ripening habit of the fruit, which not only varies
somewhat in different localities, but with different varieties. In the
extreme South, fruit is picked for shipment before it shows more than
the slightest tint of color at the blossom end; the depth of color which
is considered as indicating shipping condition deepens as we go north
and nearer market.
Generally the fruit should be left on the vine no longer than will
permit of its becoming fully ripe by the time it reaches its
destination and is exposed for sale. When the fruit is to be shipped any
distance the field should be gone over frequently, as often as every
second or third day or even every day in the hight of the season, and
care taken to pick every fruit as soon as it is in proper condition.
When it is to be sold in nearby markets or to a cannery the exact stage
of maturity, when picked, is not so important, although it is always an
advantage not to gather until the fruit is well colored and before it
begins to soften. Some growers for canneries make but three or four
pickings, but in this case it is well to gather the ripest fruit
separately.
In picking and handling great care should be taken not to mar or bruise
the fruit, and the stems should be removed as the fruit is picked to
prevent bruising in handling. A bruise or mar may not be as conspicuous
in a tomato as in a peach, but it is quite as injurious. It is a great
deal better for pickers to use light pails rather than baskets, the
flexibility of the latter often resulting in bruises. It is an advantage
to have enough of these so that the sorting can be from the pail, but if
this is not practical the fruit should be carefully emptied on a sorting
table for grading. It should first of all be separated with regard to
its maturity. A single fruit which is a little riper or greener than the
remainder may make the entire package unsalable. It should also be
graded as to freedom from blemishes or cracks, and as to size, form and
color. It is assumed that the fruit for each package is to be of the
same variety, but often there is quite a variation in different fruits
from even the same vine; the more uniform in all respects the fruit in
a package is the more attractive and salable it becomes. There is no
fruit where careful grading and packing have more influence on the price
it will command.
[Illustration: FIG. 29--FLORIDA TOMATOES PROPERLY WRAPPED FOR LONG
SHIPMENT (Photo by courtesy of _American Agriculturist_)]
I know of a certain noted peach-grower in northern Michigan who grew,
each year, some 2 to 5 acres of tomatoes for the Chicago market. It was
his custom to pick out about one-tenth of the best of the fruit, putting
it into small and attractively labeled packages; the remainder of the
crop was sorted over and from one-tenth to one-fifth of it rejected and
fed to stock or sold to a local cannery. The remainder was sent to
Chicago with his selects, but as common stock, and usually brought more
than his neighbors received for unsorted fruit; but the check he
received for his selects was usually as large as that for his commons,
thus giving him about 33-1/3 per cent. more for his crop than his
neighbors received for their equally good, but unsorted, fruit--to say
nothing of what he received for the rejected fruit and the saving of
freight which, he said, was usually enough to pay the actual cost of
sorting.
Tomatoes are usually classed as vegetables but, when ripe, they require
as careful handling as the most delicate fruits and are as easily and
seriously injured by bruising and jarring. Just how this can be avoided
and the fruit gotten from the vine to the possibly distant consumer in
the best condition will vary in different cases. Tomatoes from the South
(Fig. 29) are generally marketed in carriers which, though varying
somewhat, are essentially alike and consist of an open basket or boxes
of veneer holding about 10 pounds of fruit. When shipped, two, four or
six of these are packed in crates made of thin boards, so as to protect
the fruits but give them plenty of air.
=Packing.=--Most of the fruit sent to New York and Philadelphia markets
from New Jersey and other northern states is in boxes or crates holding
about 5/8 of a bushel and so made as to facilitate ventilation when
piled in cars or warehouses. Fruit for the canneries is usually picked
and handled in bushel crates of lath. These various packages are usually
sold in the flat and the grower puts them together as is convenient
before the crop comes on; but in many sections where there are large
shipments they are often put together by the package dealers. Fig. 30
shows tomatoes as packed by the Ohio experiment station.
[Illustration: FIG. 30--GREENHOUSE TOMATOES PACKED FOR MARKET (By
courtesy Ohio Experiment Station)]
=Fruits after frost.=--Sometimes when there is a great quantity of
partially ripe and full grown green fruit on the vines which is liable
to be spoiled by an early fall frost, it can be saved by pulling the
vines and placing them in windrows and covering them with straw. Of
course the vines should be handled carefully to shake off as little
fruit as possible. If the freeze is followed by a spell of warm, dry
weather the fruit will ripen up so as to be quite equal to that shipped
in from a distance. A second plan is to pull the vines and hang them up
in a dry cellar or out-house, or lay them on the ground in an open
grove of trees, or beneath the trees of an adjoining orchard.
Still another plan is to gather the green fruit and spread it not more
than two to four fruits deep in hotbed frames, which are then covered
with sash. Local grocers are usually glad to pay good prices for this
late fruit, and in seasons of scarcity I have known canners to buy
thousands of bushels so ripened at better prices than they paid for the
main crop.
CHAPTER XV
Adaptation of Varieties
Whatever may be their botanical origin, the modern varieties of
cultivated tomatoes vary greatly in many respects, and while these
differences are always of importance their relative importance differs
with conditions. When the great desideratum is the largest possible
yield of salable fruit at the least expenditure of labor, the qualities
of the vine may be the most important ones to be considered, while in
private gardens and for a critical home market and where closer
attention and better cultivation can be given, they may be of far less
importance than qualities of fruit.
=Habits of growth.=--Whether it be standard or dwarf, compact or
spreading, is sometimes of great importance as fitting the sorts for
certain soils and methods of culture. On heavy, moist, rich land, where
staking and pruning are essential to the production of fruit of the best
quality, it is of importance that we use sorts whose habits of growth
fit them for it; while on warm, sandy, well-drained land, staking and
pruning may be of little value, and a different habit of growth more
desirable. We have sorts in which the vine is relatively strong growing
with few branches, upright, with long nodes and small fruit clusters
well scattered over the vine. They are usually very productive through a
long season but generally late in maturing. Stocks of this type are
sometimes sold, I think improperly, as giant climbing, or Tree tomato.
The Buckeye State is a good type of these sorts. (Fig. 31.)
[Illustration: FIG. 31--BUCKEYE STATE, SHOWING LONG NODES AND DISTANCE
BETWEEN FRUIT CLUSTERS]
Other varieties make a stout and vigorous but shorter growth, with more
and heavier branches, shorter nodes and many small medium-sized clusters
of fruit well distributed over the plant and which mature through a
fairly long season. These sorts are usually very productive and our most
popular varieties generally belong to this type, of which the Stone
(Fig. 32) is a good representative of the more compact and the Beauty of
the more open growing.
[Illustration: FIG. 32--STONE, AND CHARACTERISTIC FOLIAGE]
Other varieties form many short, weak, sprawling branches, with
usually large and sometimes very large clusters of fruit produced
chiefly near the center of the plant and which mature early and all
together. Plants of this type will often mature their entire crop and
die by the time those of the first type have come into full crop. The
Atlantic Prize (Fig. 33) and Sparks Earliana are examples of this type.
In sharp contrast with the above is the tomato De Laye, often called
Tree tomato. This originated about 1862 in a garden at Chateau de Laye,
France. In this the plant rarely exceeds 18 inches in hight, is
single-stemmed or with few very short branches, the nodes very short,
the fruit clusters few and small. From this, by crossing with other
types, there has been developed a distinct class of dwarf tomatoes which
are of intermediate form and character and are well represented by the
Dwarf Champion (Fig. 34). Early maturity is sometimes the most important
consideration of all, though, because of increasing facilities for
shipping from the South, it is less commonly so than formerly. For
shipping and canning it is generally, though not always, desirable that
the crop mature as nearly together as possible, that it may be gathered
with the fewest number of pickings and advantage taken of a favorable
market; while for the home garden and market a longer season is
desirable.
[Illustration: FIG. 33--ATLANTIC PRIZE, AND ITS NORMAL FOLIAGE]
=Foliage.=--Abundant, broad and close, or scanty cut and open foliage is
sometimes of importance, according to whether the location, season and
other conditions make it desirable that the foliage protect the fruit
from the sun or admit the sunlight, with as little obstruction as
possible, to the center of the plant. In different sorts, we have
gradations from those in which the leaves are so deeply cut as to have a
fern-like appearance, to those like the Magnus, or potato-leaved, in
which the margin of each leaflet is entire, and from those in which the
leaflets are so few and small as to scarcely shut out the light at all
to those in which they are so numerous that the light can hardly
penetrate to the center of the plant. The Atlantic Prize is an
illustration of the scanty foliaged sorts, and the Royal Red or Buckeye
State of those in which it is more abundant. As to color, the foliage
varies from the dark blue-green of the Buckeye State to the light,
distinctly yellowish-green of the Honor Bright.
=Varietal differences as to fruit.=--These are often more important than
those of vine. For canning, for forcing, and some other uses and for
certain markets, a medium and uniform size is a very important quality,
while in other cases uniformity is not important and the larger the
individual fruits, provided they be well formed, the better. We have
different sorts in which the size of the fruit varies from that of the
Currant, which is scarcely 1 inch in circumference, to that of
Ponderosa, of which well-formed specimens over 20 inches in
circumference have been grown.
[Illustration: FIG. 34--DWARF CHAMPION. NOTE CHARACTER OF FOLIAGE]
=Shape.=--It is always desirable that the outline of the vertical
section shall be a flowing line with a broad and shallow, or no
depression at the stem end and as little as possible at the opposite
point; but the relative importance of this, or whether the general
outline shall be round or oval, either vertically or horizontally,
forming a round, long or flat fruit, is largely determined by how the
fruit is to be used, and by individual taste. A round fruit is best
for canning; a long one is the most economical for slicing, though some
prefer a flat one for this purpose. It is always desirable that the
outline of the horizontal section shall be smooth, flowing and
symmetrical, and if there be any distinct sutures that they shall be
shallow and broad; but the relative importance of this, and whether the
outline be round or oval, is wholly a matter of individual taste. Some
people and markets prefer one shape and others a very different one.
Size and smoothness of fruit are the factors which control price in some
markets, while in others these points are quite secondary to color and
character of flesh.
We have sorts which vary from the perfectly spherical ones of the grape
and cherry, to those in which the vertical diameter is less than a third
of that of the horizontal section; and the pear-shaped in which the
vertical diameter is twice or thrice that of the longest horizontal
section, and from those in which the outline of both the vertical and
horizontal sections is smooth and flowing to those in which the vertical
section has a deep indentation at both the stem and opposite ends, and
those in which the horizontal section is broken by deep indentures and
sutures often disposed with great irregularity.
For shipping long distances, for the rough handling, and for the easy
preparation for the fruit for canning, a thick, tough skin is desirable,
while for home use it is objectionable. Freedom from blemish or skin
crack is also often an important quality, and we have sorts which vary
greatly in these respects. The color of the skin, whether purple, red,
yellow or white, is a matter of taste. In some markets the choice is
given to purple fruit, like the Beauty, while in others it can only be
sold at a reduced price. There are few who would care to use either
yellow or white fruit for canning or cooking in any way, but many prefer
them for slicing, or like to use them with the red for this purpose; we
have sorts showing every gradation from white or light yellow in color
through shades of red to dark purple-red, and still others which show
distinct colors in splashings and shadings.
=Character of flesh.=--Many consider that the greater the number of cells
and the larger the proportion of flesh to that of pulp and seed the
better. This may be true of itself, but the fruit-like acid tomato
flavor which most people value is found chiefly in the pulp, and the
fruit which has not a due proportion of pulp and flesh seems to be
insipid and tasteless. Again, the division into many small cells is
often connected with a large and pithy placenta and unevenness in
maturity and coloring, which faults often more than overbalance any
advantage from small cells and thick flesh. The size and character of
the placenta are important qualities.
In some sorts it is large, dry, pithy and hard, extending far into the
fruit even to below the center; and sometimes seems to divide into
secondary or branch placentas or masses of hard cellular matter, while
in other varieties it is small and so soft and juicy as scarcely to be
distinguished from the flesh. Usually, but not invariably, the large and
pithy placenta is correlated with large-sized fruit having many cells;
where this is the case it practically necessitates the cutting away and
wasting of a large proportion of the fruit in preparing it for canning,
so that the canners usually prefer round, medium-sized fruits.
The character of the interior of the fruit varies greatly in different
varieties. Both the exterior and divisional walls vary in thickness and
in consistency. In some varieties they are comparatively thin, hard and
dry; in others, thicker, softer and more juicy. In some cases there is
but little interior wall, the fruit being divided into but few--even but
two--cells of even size and shape, while in others there are many cells
of varying size and shape. Varieties also differ greatly as to the
amount, consistency and flavor of the pulp and the number of seeds. It
requires from 300 to 500 pounds of ripe fruit to furnish a pound of seed
of Ponderosa, while with some of the smaller, earlier sorts one can get
a pound of seed from 100 to 200 pounds of fruit.
=Coloring and ripening.=--Uniformity and evenness in coloring and
ripening are an important quality. Tomatoes generally color and ripen
from within outward, and from the point opposite the stem upward, but
varieties differ in the evenness and rapidity with which this takes
place. It is always desirable that the ripening be as even as possible
and that there be no green and hard spots either at the surface or in
the flesh, but often perfection in this respect is correlated with such
lack of size and solidity as to counterbalance it. Rapidity in ripening,
in a general way, is desirable for fruit to be used at home, and
undesirable in that which is to be shipped.
The time a tomato fruit will remain in usable condition and the amount
of rough handling it will endure without becoming unsalable are most
important commercial qualities depending largely upon the combined
effects of the form and structure of the fruit, solidity and firmness of
the flesh and ripening habit. In all these respects we have varieties
which differ greatly, from the Honor Bright, which requires as much time
to ripen, and when ripe is firm-fleshed and will remain usable as long
as a peach, to those which 24 hours after reaching their full size are
fully colored and ripe, and in 24 hours more are so over-ripe and soft
that they will break open of their own weight.
These are only some of the varietal differences of the tomato. Are such
differences of practical importance? I think they are, and that a wise
selection of the type best suited to one's own particular conditions and
requirements is one of the most essential requisites of satisfactory
tomato culture. How important it seems to practical tomato growers may
be illustrated by an actual case.
In a certain section of New Jersey the money-making crop is early
tomatoes, and they are grown to such an extent that from an area with a
radius of not exceeding 5 miles they have shipped as much as 15,000
bushels in one day, and the shipments will often average 8,000 bushels
for days together. They have tried a great number of sorts, but have
settled upon a certain type of a well-known variety as that best suited
to their conditions and needs. Seeds of this variety which are supposed
to produce plants of the exact type wanted can be bought from seedsmen
for 10 cents an ounce and at much lower rates for larger quantities,
but when one of the most successful growers of that locality, because of
change of occupation, offered seed selected by him for his own use for
sale at auction, it brought $3 an ounce. This price was paid because of
the confidence of the bidders that the seed could be depended upon to
produce plants of the exact type wanted for their conditions; and I was
assured that the use of this high-priced seed actually added very
largely to the profits from every field in that vicinity in which it was
used, but the use of some of the same lot of seed by planters in Florida
resulted in financial loss because the type of plant produced was not
suited to their conditions and requirements.
A wise answer can only be given after a study of each case, and no one
can do this so well as the planter himself. He should know, as no one
else can know, his own conditions and requirements, and should be able
to form very exact ideas of just what he wants, and the doing so is, in
my opinion, one of the most important requisites for satisfactory tomato
growing. I also believe that it is as impossible for a man to answer
offhand the question, "What is the best variety of tomato?" as for a
wise physician to answer the question, "What is the best medicine?"
=Varietal names= and descriptions mean something quite different in the
case of plants like the tomato, which are propagated by seed, from what
they do with plants like the apple and strawberry, which are propagated
by division. In the latter case all the plants of the variety are but
parts of the primal origination, and so are alike. A description is
simply a more or less complete and accurate definition of what a
certain immutable thing really is, but in the case of plants propagated
by seed the variety is made up of all the plants which accord with a
certain ideal. Bailey says, "Of all those which have more points of
resemblance than of difference," and a description of the variety is of
that ideal which in common practice is not fixed, but may and generally
does vary not only with different people but from time to time. The only
foundation for varietal names in plants of this class is an agreement as
to the ideal the name shall stand for. Under modern horticultural
practice when anyone has been able to secure seed most of which he is
reasonably sure will develop into plants of a distinct type different
from that of any sort known to him, he has a distinct variety, so that
it is not surprising that we should find that American seedsmen offer
tomato seed under more than 300 different names, and those of Europe
under more than 200 additional, so that we have more than 500 varietal
names, each claiming to stand for a distinct sort. Now it is quite
possible--indeed, it is certain--that we might have 500 tomato plants
each different in some respect, either of vine, leaf, habit of growth,
or character of fruit, from any of the others and that these differences
might make plants of one type better suited to certain conditions and
uses than any other; but it is very certain that these 500 names do not
stand for such differences. It is doubtless true that a portion--though
I think but a small portion--of these different sorts exist simply as a
matter of commercial expediency; but by far a greater part of them exist
because one has found that plants of a certain character were better
suited to some set of conditions and requirements than any sort with
which he was acquainted, and having secured seed which he thought would
produce plants of that character, has offered it as of a distinct sort.
It is probable that a better acquaintance with sorts already in
cultivation would have prevented the naming of many of these stocks as
distinct varieties. What is of far more practical importance, the same
name does not always stand for precisely the same type with different
seedsmen, or even with the same seedsmen in different years; nor are the
seedsmen's published descriptions such as would enable any one to learn
from them just what type he will receive under any particular name, or
which sort he should buy in order to get plants of any desired type.
Seedsmen's catalogs are published and distributed gratuitously at great
expense, and are issued, primarily, for the sake of selling the seeds
they offer. They answer the purpose for which they are designed, in
proportion as they secure orders for seeds. Will this be measured by the
accuracy and completeness of their descriptions? I think that it needs
but slight acquaintance with the actual results of advertising to answer
in the negative, and whatever your answer may be, the answer given by
the catalogs themselves is an emphatic no.
In a recent case I looked very carefully through the catalogs of 125
American seedsmen who listed a certain variety which is very markedly
deficient in a certain desirable quality, and found that but 37 of the
125 mentioned the quality in connection with the variety at all and of
these but 7 admitted the deficiency, while 30 told the opposite of the
truth. Even if a complete, exact and reliable description of a variety
was published by disinterested persons, one could not be sure of getting
seed from seedsmen which would produce plants of that exact type, since
there is no agreement or uniformity among them as to the exact type any
varietal name shall stand for.
One way of getting seed of the exact type wanted is to do as the South
Jersey growers did: go to work and breed up a stock which is uniformly
of the type wanted; but this involves more painstaking care than many
are willing to give, though I think not more than it would be most
profitable for them to expend for the sake of getting seed just suited
to their needs.
A second and easier way is to secure samples of the most promising sorts
and from the most reliable sources and grow them on one's own farm;
select the stock which seems best for him and buy enough of that exact
stock for several years' planting, and in the meantime be looking for a
still better one. Tomato seed stored in a cool, dry place will retain
its vitality for from three to seven years.
CHAPTER XVI
Seed Breeding and Growing
The potentialities of every plant and its limitations are inherent,
fixed and immutable in the seed from which it is developed and are made
up of the balanced sum of the different tendencies it receives in
varying degree from each of its ancestors back for an indefinite number
of generations. A very slight difference in the character or the degree
of any one of the tendencies which go to make up this sum may make a
most material difference in the balance and so in the resulting
character of the plant produced. Different plants, even of the same
ancestry, vary greatly in prepotency or in the relative dominance of the
influence they have over descendants raised from seed produced by them.
In some cases all the plants raised from seed produced by a certain
plant will be essentially alike and closely resemble the seed-bearing
plant, while seed from another plant of the same parentage will develop
into plants differing from each other and seemingly more influenced by
some distant ancestor or by varying combinations of such influences than
of those of the plant which actually produced the seed from which they
were developed. Successful seed breeding can only be accomplished by
taking advantage of these principles of heredity and variation, and by a
wise use of them it is possible to produce seed which can be depended
upon to produce plants of any type possible to the species.
=The first essential for breeding= is to have a clear and exact
conception of precisely what, in all respects, the type shall be and
then the securing of seed which has come from plants of that exact
character for the greatest possible number of generations, carefully
avoiding the introduction by cross-pollination of tendencies from plants
differing in any degree from the desired type. Secondly, seed should be
used from plants which have been proven to produce seed, which will
develop into plants like themselves or are strongly prepotent. A
practical way to accomplish this in the tomato is as follows:
By experiment and observation form a very clear conception of precisely
the type of plant and fruits which is best suited to your needs. This
may be done by the study of available descriptions of sorts, by
conference with those who have had experience in your own or similar
climatic and soil conditions and in raising fruit for the same purposes
and, best of all, by trials of samples of different sorts and stocks on
your own grounds. Having formed such a conception, write out the
clearest possible description of exactly what you want and the ideal
plant you are aiming at, stating as fully and minutely as possible every
desirable quality and also those to be avoided. I consider not only the
formation of an exact ideal, but the writing out of a most minute and
exact description of precisely what in every particular the ideal plant
should be and the rigid adherence to that exact ideal in selection, as
the most important elements of successful seed breeding. Without it one
is certain to vary from year to year in the type selected and in just so
far as he does this, even if it be toward what might be called
improvements or in regard to an unimportant quality, he undermines all
his work and makes it impossible to establish a strain which can be
relied upon to produce an exact type.
With this description in hand, search out one or more plants which seem
the nearest to the ideal. In doing this it should be kept in mind that
the character of the seed is determined by the plant rather than by the
individual fruit. Therefore, a plant whose fruit is most uniformly of
the desired type should be chosen over one having a small proportion of
its fruits of very perfect type, the others being different and
variable. Save seed from one or more fruits from each of the selected
plants, keeping that from each fruit, or at least each plant, separate.
Give it a number and make a record of how nearly, in each particular,
the plant and fruit of each number come to the desired ideal. I regard
the saving of each lot separately and recording its characters as very
important, even when all have been selected to and come equally close to
precisely the same ideal. Quite often the seed of one plant will produce
plants precisely like it, while that of another, equal or superior, will
produce plants of which no two are alike and none like that which
produced the seed, so that often the mixing of seed from different
plants of the same general type, and seemingly of equal quality,
prevents the establishment of a uniform type.
The next year from 10 to 100 plants raised from each lot are set in
blocks and labeled. As they develop the blocks are studied and compared
with the original description of the desired type and that of each plant
from which seed was saved, and the block selected in which all the
plants come the nearest to the desired type, and which show the least
variation. From it plants are selected in the same way and to the same
type as the previous year. It is better to make selections from such a
block than to take the most superior plants from all of the blocks, or
from one which produced but one or but a few superlative ones, the rest
being variable.
It is also well to consider the relative importance of different
qualities in connection with the degree to which the different lots
approach the ideal in these respects. Such a course of selection
intelligently and carefully carried out will give, in from three to five
years, strains of seed greatly superior and better adapted to one's own
conditions than any which it is possible to purchase. A single or but a
very few selections may be made each year, and the superior value of the
seed of the remainder of the seed blocks for use in the field will be
far more than the cost of the whole work.
=Growing and saving commercial seed.=--The ideal way is for the seedsman
to grow and select seed as described above and give this stock seed to
farmers who plant in fields and cultivate it, much as is recommended for
canning, and save seed from the entire crop, the pulp being thrown away.
Only a few pickings are necessary and the seed is separated by machines
worked by horse power at small cost, often not exceeding 10 cents a
pound. They secure from 75 to 250 pounds per acre, according to the
variety and crop, and the seedsmen pay them 40 cents to $1 a pound for
it. Some of our more careful seedsmen produce all the seed they use in
this way; others buy of professional seed growers, who use more or less
carefully grown stock seed. In other cases when the fruit is fully ripe
it is gathered, and the seeds, pulp and skins, are separated by
machinery; the seed is sold to seedsmen, the pulp made into catsup, and
only the skins are thrown away. Still others get their supply by washing
out and saving the seed from the waste of canneries. Such seed is just
as good as seed saved _from the same grade of tomatoes_ in any other
way, but the fruit used by the canneries is, usually, a mixture of
different crops and grades, and even of different varieties, and
consequently the seed is mixed and entirely lacking in uniformity and
distinctness of type.
Generally from 5 to 20 per cent. of the plants produced by seed as
commonly grown either by the farmer himself or the seedsmen, though they
may be alike in more conspicuous characteristics, will show varietal
differences of such importance as to affect more or less materially the
value of the plant for the conditions and the purposes for which it is
grown. In a book like this it is useless to attempt to give long
varietal descriptions even of the sorts commonly listed by seedsmen,
since such descriptions would be more a statement of what the writer
thought seed of that variety should be rather than of what one would be
likely to receive under that name.
CHAPTER XVII
Production for Canning
=Growing for canning= has many advantages over growing for market. Some
of these are that it is not necessary to start the plants so early, that
they can be grown at less cost, and set in the field when smaller and
with less check, and on this latter account are apt to give a large
yield. It is not necessary to gather the fruit so often, nor to handle
it so carefully, while practically all of it is saleable. For these
reasons the cost of production is lower and it is less variable than
with crops grown for market. Still farmers and writers do not agree at
all as to the actual cost. It is claimed by some that where the factory
is within easy reach of the field the cost of growing, gathering and
delivering a full yield of tomatoes need not exceed $12 to $18 an acre,
while others declare they cannot be grown for less than $40. Nearly
one-third of this cost is for picking and delivering, and varies more
with the facilities for doing this easily and promptly and with the
yield than with crops grown for market. A large proportion of the crops
grown for canning are poorly cultivated and unwisely handled, so that
the average yield throughout the entire country is very low, hardly
exceeding 100 bushels an acre. But where weather and other conditions
are favorable, and with judicious cultivation, a yield of 300 to 800
bushels an acre can be expected. I have known of many larger ones.
A large proportion of the tomatoes grown for canning are planted under
contract, by which the farmer agrees to deliver the entire yield of
fruit fit for canning, which may be produced on a given area, at the
contract price per bushel or ton. The canner is to judge what fruit is
fit for canning and this often results in great dissatisfaction. To the
grower it seems in many cases as though the quantity of acceptable fruit
paid for was determined quite as much by the abundance or scarcity of
the general crop as by the weight hauled to the factory. The prices paid
by the factories for the past 10 years run from 10 to 25 cents a bushel,
while canning tomatoes in the open market for the same period have
brought from 8 to 50 cents a bushel, which, however, are exceptional
prices. In all but two of the past 10 years uncontracted tomatoes could
generally be sold, in most sections, for more than was paid on contract.
I have given the price a bushel, though canning tomatoes are usually
sold by the ton. The cost of the product of a well-equipped cannery is
divided about as follows: fruit, 30 per cent.; handling, preparing and
processing the fruit, 18 per cent.; cost of cans, labels, cases, etc.,
43 per cent.; labeling, packing and selling, 0.035 per cent.;
incidentals, 0.055 per cent.
=Canning on the farm.=--While as a general proposition such work as
canning tomatoes can usually be done at less cost in a central plant,
yet in many cases the grower can profitably do this on the farm, thus
saving not only the expense of delivery at the factory, but the
dissatisfaction with weights credited and delays in receiving the fruit.
But very little special apparatus or machinery (more than some form of
boiler for supplying steam) is needed, and this and the cans can be
readily obtained of dealers in canners' supplies. In Maryland and
neighboring states many dealers furnish all necessary machinery, cans
and other requisites and contract for the crop delivered in cans.
Canning on the farm where the fruit is grown would be more generally
practiced except for the popular demand that the canned product shall be
brighter colored than it is possible to produce from fruit alone, and
the necessary dyeing and other doctoring can be more easily and
skilfully done at a central factory, though it is always at the
sacrifice of flavor and healthfulness for the sake of appearance.
Another advantage of canning on the farm is that it can be done with
less waste of fruit. The hauling to the factory and delay in working the
fruit result in a great deal of waste. The average cannery does not
obtain more than 1,200 pounds of product from a ton of fruit, there
being 800 pounds of waste, while with sound, ripe, perfectly fresh
fruit, it is entirely practical to secure from 1,600 to 1,800 pounds of
canned goods from a ton, and this saving in waste would more than
counterbalance the gain from the use of the better machinery possible in
the factory.
=The process of canning= is simple and consists first of rinsing off the
fruit, then in wire baskets or pails dipping it into boiling hot water
to start the skins, which will require but two to four minutes. While
they are still hot they should be peeled and imperfections cut out,
then promptly placed in the cans, which should be fully filled; it is
well to do this by adding the juice which has escaped while peeling,
instead of water, as is done in the larger factories. This will give the
canned fruit better color and lessen the need of dye. Place in a hot box
for three to five minutes until heated through, wipe top of can clean
and drop perforated cap in place, add flux and solder, seal cap in place
with round capper, close perforation in cap with drop of solder. Place
in box or kettle and steam or boil for 20 to 40 minutes. If the tomatoes
were all ripe and none over-ripe, and have been kept hot from the time
they went into the scalding kettle until the sealed cans are in the
kettle, 20 minutes' cooking will make them surer to keep than 40 minutes
would with fruit such as is commonly received at factories, or that
which has been allowed to cool once or twice while in process.
CHAPTER XVIII
Cost of Production
There are a few vegetables or fruits where the cost of production and
the price received are more variable than with the tomato. The cost per
acre for raising the fruit varies with the conditions of soil,
facilities for doing the work economically and with the season, while
that of marketing the product varies still more. Under usual conditions,
the growing of an acre of tomatoes and the gathering and marketing of
the fruit will cost from $18 to $90, of which from 15 to 40 per cent. is
spent in fertilizing and preparing the ground, 5 to 10 per cent. for
plants, 20 to 30 per cent. for cultivation, and 25 to 40 per cent. for
gathering and handling the fruit. The last item, of course, varies
somewhat with, but not in proportion to, the amount of the crop, as it
costs proportionately less to gather a large than a small crop, and for
canners' use than for market.
The expense of shipping and marketing the crop varies so greatly
according to the conditions and methods that I do not attempt to state
the amount. The total yield of fruit runs from 200 to 600 or 700 bushels
to the acre, a 200-bushel crop of tomatoes comparing as to amount with
one of 25 bushels of wheat and a 700-bushel crop of tomatoes with one of
60 bushels of wheat; with the best and wisest cultivation and under the
most favorable conditions one can as reasonably hope for one as for the
other. Of this total yield, from 10 to 25 per cent. of the fruit should
be such as, because of earliness and quality, can be sold as extras, and
there is usually from 5 to 10 per cent., and sometimes a much larger per
cent., which should be rejected as unsalable. The selected fruit should
net from $1 to $5 a bushel, the common from 30 to 75 cents--making the
returns for a 200-bushel yield well sold in a nearby market $70 to $350,
and proportionately larger, for a better yield. In practice I have known
of crops which gave a profit above expenses of over $1,000 an acre. This
came, however, from exceptionally favorable conditions and skilled
marketing, and I have known of many more crops where, though the fruit
was equally large and well grown, the profit was less than $100.
In this country a greenhouse is seldom used solely for the growing of
tomatoes, but other crops--such as lettuce--are grown in connection with
the tomatoes, so that it is impracticable to give the cost of
production. As grown at the Ohio state experiment station--and the crop
ripened in late spring or early summer and sold on the market of smaller
cities--greenhouse tomatoes have yielded about two pounds a square foot
of glass and brought an average price of 12 cents per pound. In other
cases yields as high as 10 pounds a foot of glass and an average price
of 40 cents a pound have been reported.
CHAPTER XIX
Insects Injurious to the Tomato
By DR. F. H. CHITTENDEN
Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture
From the time tomato plants are set in the field until the fruit has
ripened they are subject to the attacks of insects which frequently
cause serious injury. On the whole, however, the tomato is not so
susceptible to damage as are some related crops--such as the potato.
=Cutworms.=--Of insects most to be feared and of those which attack the
plants when they are first set out are cutworms of various species. The
grower is as a rule quite too familiar with these insects, and no
description of their methods is necessary, beyond the statement that
they cut off and destroy more than they eat and re-setting is frequently
necessary. The best remedy is a poisoned bait, prepared by dipping
bunches of clover, weeds, or other vegetation in a solution of Paris
green or other arsenical, 1 pound to 100 gallons of water. These baits
are distributed in small lots over the ground _before_ the plants are
set, the precaution being observed that the land is free for two or
three weeks from any form of vegetation. This will force the hungry
"worms" to feed on the baits, to their prompt destruction. A bran-mash
is also used instead of weeds or clover, and is prepared by combining
one part by weight of arsenic, one of sugar, and six of sweetened bran,
with enough water added to make a mash. The baits are renewed if they
become too dry, or they can be kept moist by placing them under shingles
or pieces of board.
[Illustration: FIG. 35--CUTWORM AND PARENT MOTH (_Feltia subgothica_)
(From Chittenden, U. S. Department of Agriculture)]
=Flea-beetles= attack the plants soon after they are set, and their
injuries can be prevented by dipping the young plants before setting in
a solution of arsenate of lead, about 1 pound to 50 gallons of water, or
Paris green, 1 pound to 100 gallons. If this precaution has not been
observed a spray of either of these arsenicals used in the proportion
specified will suffice, repeating if the insects continue on the plants.
In the preparation of the spray a pound of fresh lime to each pound of
the arsenical should be added; or, better yet, Bordeaux mixture should
be employed as a diluent instead of water. This mixture has some
insecticidal value, is a most valuable fungicide, and is also a
powerful deterrent of flea-beetle attack, acting to a less degree
against other insects which are apt to be found on the tomato. In
applying any spray a sprayer costing not less than $7 is a positive
necessity.
[Illustration: FIG. 36--FLEA-BEETLE Does great injury to young plants.
Much enlarged. Actual size shown by line at right. (From Chittenden)]
[Illustration: FIG. 37--MARGINED BLISTER BEETLE (From Chittenden)]
=The Colorado potato beetle=, or "potato bug," sometimes injures
tomatoes, but not as a rule when potatoes are available. This suggests
the use of potatoes as a trap crop, planted in about three rows
completely around the field of tomatoes. The arsenicals used in the same
proportion as for flea-beetles will destroy the potato beetle. It is
necessary to keep the trap potatoes well sprayed to prevent them from
breeding on these plants and migrating to the tomatoes. Potato beetles
can also be controlled by jarring them from the affected plants into
large pans containing a little water on which a thin scum of kerosene is
floating.
=Blister beetles= may be controlled, under ordinary circumstances, by
the same method employed against the Colorado beetle. When they are
present in great numbers a good remedy consists in driving them with the
wind from the cultivated fields into windrows of straw or similar dry
material previously prepared along the leeward side of the field, where
they will congregate and can be burned.
[Illustration: FIG. 38--TOMATO WORM (_Protoparce sexta_) (_a_) Adult
moth; (_b_) full-grown larva; (_c_) pupa--all reduced. (After Howard, U.
S. Dept. Agr.)]
=The tomato worms=, of which there are two common species closely
resembling each other, are often abundant and destructive on tomato
foliage, particularly southward. The arsenicals will kill them, or they
can be held in check by hand-picking, a little experience enabling one
to detect their presence readily. Turkeys are utilized in destroying
these worms in the South.
[Illustration: FIG. 39--TOMATO STALK-BORER (_Papaipema nitela_)
(_a_) Female moth; (_b_) half-grown larva; (_c_) mature larva in injured
stalk; (_d_) lateral view of abdominal segment; (_e_) pupa--all somewhat
enlarged. (From Chittenden, U. S. Dept. Agr.)]
=The stalk-borer=, as its name implies, attacks the stalk, and is an
intermittent pest, though quite annoying at times. It is difficult to
combat, but its injuries may be prevented by care in keeping down, and
by _promptly_ destroying, the weeds after they are pulled or hoed out
during the growing season. If weeds are left to dry the striped
caterpillar of this species will desert them and enter cultivated
plants. Ragweed and burdock are the principal foods of this insect, and
special attention should be given to eradicate them where tomatoes are
planted. Crop rotation is advisable where this can be conveniently
practiced, and such plants as cabbage, radish and the like, onions,
beets, asparagus and celery are suggested as alternates. When the plants
are sprayed with arsenicals for other insects this will operate to a
certain extent against the stalk-borer.
[Illustration: FIG. 40--CHARACTERISTIC WORK OF THE TOMATO FRUIT WORM
(_Heliothis obsoleta_) (Redrawn by Johnson from C. V. Riley)]
[Illustration: FIG. 41--ADULT MOTH, OR PARENT OF TOMATO FRUIT WORM
(From Chittenden, U. S. Department of Agriculture)]
=The tomato fruit worm= (Fig. 40) known as the bollworm of cotton and the
ear worm of corn, is frequently the cause of serious trouble to tomato
growers, especially in the southern states, due to its pernicious habit
of eating into and destroying the green and ripening fruit. For its
control it is advisable not to plant tomatoes in proximity to old corn
or cotton fields, nor should land be used in regions where this species
is abundant until it has been fall or winter plowed. Sweet corn planted
about the field before the tomatoes are set will serve as a lure for the
parent moths to deposit their eggs, corn and cotton being favorite foods
of this species and preferred to tomatoes. The fruit worm feeds to a
certain extent on the foliage before penetrating the fruit, and it is
possible to keep it in subjection by spraying with arsenicals as advised
for the flea-beetles. It is suggested that arsenate of lead, being more
adhesive than other arsenicals, should be used for the first sprayings,
beginning when the fruit commences to form, repeating once or twice as
found necessary, and making a last spraying with Paris green within a
few days of ripening. This last poison will readily wash off and there
is no danger whatever of poisoning to human beings, as has been
conclusively proved in numerous similar cases. For the perfect success
of this remedy the last spraying is essential, as those who have
sprayed with an arsenical and have reported only partial good results
have discontinued within about two weeks of the time of the ripening of
the first fruit.
=White fly or aleyrodes.=--These minute insects are familiar to most
growers who raise tomatoes under glass. They can be held in control by
vaporization or fumigation with tobacco or nicotine extracts, or by
spraying with kerosene emulsion or the so-called whale-oil (fish-oil)
soap. Care is necessary in using the extracts that the smudge does not
become too dense and injure the plants. Before applying this remedy on a
large scale a preliminary trial should be made following the directions
on the packages, and reducing the amount if any ill results follow.
Hydrocyanic acid gas, properly used, is also an excellent remedy for
aleyrodes, aphides, "mealy-bug," and other soft-bodied insects which are
sometimes troublesome on greenhouse tomatoes.
For a complete account of the methods of making and handling
hydrocyanic acid gas, see Professor Johnson's book entitled
"Fumigation Methods," published by Orange Judd Company, of New
York. Sent postpaid for $1.--[AUTHOR.
CHAPTER XX
Tomato Diseases
By W. A. ORTON
U. S. Department of Agriculture
DISEASES NOT CAUSED BY FUNGI OR INSECTS
The health of tomato plants is to a large extent dependent on the
conditions under which they are being grown. The character and physical
condition of the soil, the supply of water and plant food, the
temperature and amount of sunlight, are all factors of the greatest
importance in the growth and development of the crop. When there are
variations from the normal in the case of any of these the plant adapts
itself to the change as far as possible, but its functions may be so
disturbed as to result in ill health or disease. It is in many cases
difficult to draw a line between a natural re-action of the plant to its
environment and a state of disease. For example, the trouble described
in the next paragraph seems to fall into the first class.
=Shedding of blossoms.=--The tomato is very liable to drop its buds and
blossoms and in some instances partial or total crop failures have
resulted. The principal causes are an over-rapid growth, due in many
cases to an excess of nitrogenous fertilizers, unfavorable weather
conditions, especially cold winds, continued rainy or moist weather,
which hinders pollination, lack of sunlight, or extremely hot weather.
Such shedding can be partially controlled by pruning away the lateral
branches as soon as formed and topping the plants after the third
cluster of fruit has set, and by a reduction in the use of nitrogenous
fertilizers. A failure to set fruit in the greenhouse is often due to
lack of pollination, which must be remedied by hand pollination.
=Cracking of the fruit.=--The formation of cracks or fissures in the
nearly mature fruit is due to variations in the water supply and other
conditions affecting growth at this stage. If after the development of
the outer portion of the fruit has been checked by drought there follows
a period of abundant water supply and rapid growth, the fruit expands
more rapidly than its epidermis and the latter is ruptured. Some
varieties of tomatoes are much less subject to this trouble than others
and should be given preference on this account. The grower, so far as
lies in his power, should seek to maintain an uninterrupted growth by
thorough preparation of the land, by cultivation or by mulching. If the
half-grown fruits are enclosed in paper bags, cracking may be prevented,
but at the risk of loss of flavor in the ripened fruit.
=Leaf curl.=--The effect of pruning is to stimulate growth and to
increase the size of the leaves, the effort of the plant being to
maintain a balance between roots and foliage. With rapidly growing
plants, especially in the greenhouse and garden where both high manuring
and pruning have been practiced, more or less curling and distortion of
the leaves may result without developing into serious trouble if the
grower takes the hint and modifies his methods so as to permit a more
balanced growth. On the other hand, the ill effects of over-feeding and
pruning may reach a point where the plant is seriously crippled.
=Edema.=--Under certain conditions plants in greenhouses or even in the
open field, may absorb water through the roots faster than it can be
transpired through the leaves, with the result that dropsical swellings
or blisters occur on the leaves and more succulent stems. There is also
a deformation of the foliage, much like the leaf-curl produced by
over-feeding. This trouble, known as edema, occurs when the soil is
warmer than the air, or during periods of moist, warm, cloudy weather,
which checks transpiration. The grower should cease pruning, and
withhold water, and in the field cultivate deeply. In the greenhouse,
adequate ventilation should be given, keeping the house dry rather than
moist.
=Mosaic disease.=--The tomato is occasionally subject to a trouble allied
to the mosaic disease of tobacco. It is characterized by a variegation
of the leaves into light and dark green areas, usually accompanied by
distortion and reduction in size. In severe cases a whole field may
become worthless. While the nature of this malady is not fully
understood, it is known to be due to a disordered nutrition of the young
leaf-cells. It can be produced by severe pruning or by mutilation of the
roots in transplanting, both of which should be carefully avoided. It is
more likely to occur in seedlings that have made a soft, rapid growth on
account of an excess of nitrogenous fertilizer or too high temperature.
Close, clayey soils, on account of their poor physical condition, also
favor the development of the disease after transplanting.
=Western blight (Yellows).=--In the North Pacific and Rocky Mountain
states, serious losses are annually caused by a disease apparently
unlike any eastern trouble. It is marked by a gradual yellowing of the
foliage and fruit. Development is checked, the leaves curl upward and
the plant dies without wilting. The nature and cause of this disease is
as yet unknown. It appears to be worst on new land. Experiments that
have been made indicate that in older cultivated fields thorough
preparation of the soil, manuring and cultivation, combined with care in
transplanting to avoid injuring the roots and checking growth, will
greatly restrict the spread of this blight.
DISEASES CAUSED BY PARASITES
There are several fungous parasites of tomatoes, which, for the readers
convenience, may be briefly mentioned and the treatment of all discussed
together. The first three are indeed somewhat difficult to tell apart
without a microscope, as they produce a similar effect on the leaves and
all yield to the same treatment--thorough spraying with Bordeaux
mixture.
=Leaf spot= (_Septoria lycopersici_ Speg.) has been widely prevalent and
injurious during recent years. It produces small, roundish dark-brown
spots on leaves and stems. The lower leaves are attacked first and
gradually curl up, die and fall off. The vitality of the plant is
reduced and it is only kept alive by the young leaves formed at the
top.
The fungus that causes early blight of potatoes (_Alternaria solani_ (E.
& M.) J. & G.) occurs on tomatoes also, sometimes doing much injury. The
spots formed are at first small and black, later enlarging and
exhibiting fine concentric rings.
A somewhat similar leaf-blight results from a species of
_Cylindrosporium_, and other fungi may occur on diseased leaves.
=Leaf mold= (_Cladosporium fulvum_ Cke.) is quite distinct from the
foregoing in appearance. It does not cause such distinct spots but
occurs in greenish brown, velvety patches of irregular outline on the
under side of the leaves. The lower leaves are first attacked, and as
the disease progresses they turn yellow and drop off. This is the
principal fungous enemy of greenhouse tomatoes, but also does injury in
gardens, particularly in Florida and the Gulf region. It is readily
controlled by spraying. In the greenhouse care should be taken to
ventilate well, without, however, allowing cold drafts to strike the
plants.
=Downy mildew= (_Phytopthora infestans_ DeBy.), the cause of the late
blight of potatoes, will attack tomatoes during cool and very moist
weather, which greatly favors its development. Such outbreaks sometimes
occur to a limited extent in New England and serious losses are reported
on the winter crop in southern California, but the disease has never
been troublesome in other sections of the country, as it cannot develop
in dry or hot weather. It affects the tomato as it does the potato,
forming on the leaves dark, discolored spots, which spread rapidly under
favorable conditions, killing the foliage in a few days. The fruit is
also attacked and becomes covered with the mildew-like spore-bearing
threads of the fungus. Bordeaux mixture properly applied is an efficient
preventive.
=Spraying tomatoes.=--It should be the invariable practice of the tomato
grower to spray with Bordeaux mixture to prevent injury from any of
these leaf-blights. This should be done while the plants are still
healthy, as if put off until the disease appears the battle is half
lost. Make the first application to the young plants in the seed-bed a
few days before transplanting. Spray again within a week after the
plants are set in the field, and repeat at intervals of ten days or two
weeks until the fruit is full grown. Success in spraying depends mainly
on the thoroughness of the work. The aim should be to cover every leaf
with a fine mist. Do not drench the foliage but pass to the next plant
before the drops run together and off the leaf. Use a nozzle that gives
a fine spray and maintain a high pressure at the pump.
_Preparation of Bordeaux mixture._--Formula: Copper sulphate
(bluestone), 5 pounds; lime, 5 pounds; and water, 50 gallons. The copper
sulphate may be either in crystals or pulverized. Dissolve by suspending
the required amount in a coarse sack near the top of the water a few
hours before it will be needed. The lime must be fresh stone lime of
good quality. Slake thoroughly by the addition of small quantities of
water at a time as needed, stirring until all small lumps are slaked.
Strain both the lime milk and the copper sulphate or bluestone solution
through a brass strainer of 18 meshes per inch and dilute each with half
the water before mixing together. Do not use Bordeaux left over from
the previous day. An old mixture or one made from the concentrated
solutions has a poor physical condition. It settles more quickly, tends
to clog the nozzle and does not adhere so well to the foliage. Failure
to use the strainer results in endless trouble in the field from clogged
nozzles.
[Illustration: FIG. 42--PROPER WAY TO MAKE BORDEAUX (From W. G.
Johnson)]
When much spraying is to be done it is more convenient to keep the
bluestone and lime in separate permanent stock solutions, as shown in
Fig. 42, containing 2 pounds to the gallon of their respective
ingredients. These will keep indefinitely, if the water evaporated is
replaced, and may be used from as needed.
_Spraying apparatus._--Tomato growers having only a small area to spray
may use one of the numerous forms of hand-pumps or bucket sprayers now
on the market. For larger fields it will be necessary to employ a
barrel sprayer. This consists of a hand-pump mounted in a barrel or tank
and equipped with two leads of 3/8 inch hose 25 feet long, each with a
four-foot, extension made from 1/4 inch gas pipe, and a double Vermorel
nozzle. The barrel should be carried in an ordinary farm wagon. Three
men do the work. One is expected to drive and pump, while the other two
manipulate the nozzles. The outfit is stopped while the plants within
reach are sprayed, then driven forward about 30 feet and stopped again.
On an average in actual field practice 3 to 4 acres a day can be sprayed
in this way, applying 100 to 200 gallons of Bordeaux per acre. To keep
the long hose off the plants two poles about 10 feet long may be pivoted
to the bed of the wagon so as to swing at an angle over the wheel and
carry the hose. The pump for this outfit should be of good capacity,
with brass valves. A "Y" shut-off discharge connection on the pump is a
convenience for stopping the spray at any time. The most satisfactory
nozzles are those of the Vermorel type. It is cheapest in the long run
to buy the best grades of pumps on the market. This outfit is
excellently adapted for spraying small fields of potatoes and for
general orchard work, and is invaluable on the average farm.
=Phytoptosis.=--This disease is known to occur only in Florida, where it
is sometimes common enough to require remedial treatment. The affected
portions of the foliage are more or less distorted and covered with an
ashy white fuzz. The general vigor and fruitfulness of the plants are
greatly reduced. The name applied to this trouble denotes its cause, an
extremely small mite (_Phytoptus calacladophora_ Nal.), which by its
presence on the leaves or stems so irritates them as to result in the
abundant development of modified plant hairs, which shelter the mites
and form the fuzzy covering characteristic of the disease. A remedy for
phytoptosis is available in the sulphur compounds. The following one is
particularly recommended by Prof. P. H. Rolfs, to whom our knowledge of
the disease is due:
_Preparation of sulphur spray._--Place 30 pounds of flowers of sulphur
in a wooden tub large enough to hold 25 gallons. Wet the sulphur with 3
gallons of water, stir it to form a paste. Then add 20 pounds of 98 per
cent. caustic soda (28 pounds should be used if the caustic soda is 70
per cent.) and mix it with the sulphur paste. In a few minutes it
becomes very hot, turns brown, and becomes a liquid. Stir thoroughly and
add enough water to make 20 gallons. Pour off from the sediment and keep
the liquid as a stock solution in a tight barrel or keg. Of this
solution use 4 quarts to 50 gallons of water. Apply with a spray pump
whenever the disease appears, and repeat if required by its later
reappearance. The use of dry sulphur is also recommended.
DISEASES OF THE FRUIT
[Illustration: FIG. 43--POINT-ROT DISEASE OF THE TOMATO (Redrawn from
N. Y. Expr. Sta. No. 125)]
=Point-rot.=--This trouble, called also "blossom-end rot," and
"black-rot," occurs on the green fruit at various stages of development,
as shown in Fig. 43. It begins at the blossom end as a sunken brown
spot, which gradually enlarges until the fruit is rendered worthless.
The decayed spot is often covered in its later stages by a dense black
fungous growth (_Alternaria fasciculata_ (C. & E.) J. & G. syn.
_Macrosporium tomato_ Cke.), formerly thought to be the cause of the
rot, but now known to be merely a saprophyte. Point-rot sometimes occurs
in greenhouses, but is more common in field culture. It is one of the
most destructive diseases of the tomato, but its nature is not fully
worked out, and a uniformly successful treatment is unknown. It has been
thought to be due to bacterial invasion, but complete demonstrations of
that fact have not yet been published. The physiological conditions of
the plant appear to be important. The disease is worst in dry weather
and light soils, where the moisture supply is insufficient, and
irrigation is beneficial in such cases. Spraying does not control
point-rot so far as present evidence goes.
=Anthracnose--ripe-rot=--(_Colletotrichum phomoides_ (Sacc.) Chest.), is
distinguished from the point-rot by the fact that it occurs mainly on
ripe or nearly ripe fruits, producing a soft and rapid decay. Widespread
losses from this cause are not common, but when a field becomes infected
a considerable proportion of the crop within a limited area may be
destroyed if humid or rainy weather prevails. Preventive measures only
can be employed. These should consist in collecting and destroying
diseased fruit and in staking and trimming the vines to admit light and
air to dry out the foliage. Bordeaux mixture applied after the
development of the disease would be of doubtful efficiency and would be
objectionable on account of the sediment left on the ripe fruit.
DISEASES OF THE ROOT OR STEM
=Damping off.=--Young plants in seed-beds often perish suddenly from a
rot of the stem at the surface of the ground. This occurs as a rule in
dull, cloudy weather among plants kept at too high a temperature,
crowded too closely in the beds or not sufficiently ventilated. Several
kinds of fungi are capable of causing damping off, under such
conditions.
_Preventive measures_ are of the first importance. Since old soil is
often full of fungous spores left by previous crops, it is the wisest
plan to use sterilized soil for the seed-bed. When the young plants are
growing, constant watchfulness is required to avoid conditions that will
weaken the seedlings and favor the damping off fungi.
_Watering and ventilation_ are the two points that require especial
skill. Watering should be done at midday, to allow the beds to drain
before night, and only enough water for the thorough moistening of the
soil should be applied. Ventilation should be given every warm day as
the temperature and sunshine will permit, but the plants must be
protected from rain and cold winds. Work the surface of the soil to
permit aeration and do not crowd the plants too closely in the beds. If
damping off develops something can be done to check it by scattering a
layer of dry, warm sand over the surface, and by spraying the bed
thoroughly with weak Bordeaux or by applying dry sulphur and air-slaked
lime.
=Bacterial wilt= (_Bacterium solanacearum_ Erw. Sm.).--This disease,
which also attacks potatoes and eggplants and some related weeds, is one
of the most serious enemies of the tomato. It is known to occur from
Connecticut southward to Florida and westward to Colorado, but is most
prevalent in the Gulf States, where it has greatly discouraged many
growers.
_Its most prominent symptoms_ are the wilting of the foliage and a
browning of the wood inside the recently wilted stems. An affected plant
wilts first at the top, or a single branch wilts, but later the entire
plant yellows, wilts and dies. Young plants wilt more suddenly and dry
up. The disease progresses more rapidly in plants that have made a
succulent, luxurious growth, while those with hard, woody stems resist
it somewhat.
_The disease is due_ to the invasion of bacteria, which enter the leaves
through the aid of leaf-eating insects, or through the roots. They plug
the water-carrying vessels of the stem, shutting off the water and food
supply of the plant. If the stem of a plant freshly wilted from this
disease be severed, the bacteria will ooze out in dirty white drops on
the cut surface.
=Remedial measures= entirely satisfactory for the control of bacterial
wilt have not yet been worked out. The best methods to adopt at present
are the following:
(1) _Rotation of crops._--The field evidence is that this disease is in
many cases localized in old gardens or in definite spots in the field.
It appears also that the infection left by a diseased crop can remain in
the soil for some time. It is therefore advised that tomato growers
should always practice a rotation of crops, whether any disease has
appeared or not, and that in case bacterial wilt develops they should
not plant that land in tomatoes, potatoes, or eggplants for three or
four years. The length of rotation necessary to free the soil is not
known, but will have to be worked out by the individual grower.
(2) _Destruction of diseased plants._--The bacteria causing wilt not
only spread through the soil but are carried by insects from freshly
wilted to healthy plants. Diseased plants thus become dangerous sources
of infection, and it is evident that all such should be pulled out and
burned. This is particularly important at the beginning of the trouble
when the eradication of a few wilting plants may save the remainder.
(3) _Control of insects._--To lessen the danger from spread of wilt by
insects, the measures advised in the next chapter for the control of
leaf-eating insects should be adopted. In this connection it should be
mentioned that the use of Bordeaux mixture for leaf blights, as
previously recommended, has an additional value in that the coating on
the leaves is distasteful to insects and helps to keep them away.
(4) _Seed selection._--Work done at the Florida experiment station
indicates that resistant varieties may be secured, but there are as yet
none in commercial use. This is an important line for experimenters to
follow up. There is no proof that the disease is spread through seed
from diseased plants.
=Fusarium wilt.=--This disease and the one following resemble the
bacterial wilt so closely, as far as external characters go, that they
are difficult to tell apart. The parasites, however, differ so
materially in their nature and life history that the field treatment is
quite different. There are also differences in geographical distribution
that are important, for while the Fusarium wilt occurs occasionally
throughout the southern states, it is known to be of general commercial
importance only in southern Florida and southern California.
_The symptoms of the disease_ are a gradual wilting and dying of the
plants, usually in the later stages of their development. Young plants
die, however, when the soil infection is severe. There is a browning of
the woody portions of the stem, and when a section of this is examined
under a compound microscope the vessels are found to be filled with
fungous threads, which shut off the water supply.
_The infection_ in the Fusarium wilt appears to come entirely from the
soil. Little is known of its manner of spread, except that the
cultivation of a tomato crop in certain districts appears to leave the
soil infected so that a crop planted the next year will be injured or
destroyed. The fungus does not remain in the soil for a very long time
in sufficient abundance to cause serious harm. A rotation of crops that
will bring tomatoes on the land once in three years has been found in
Florida to prevent loss from Fusarium wilt.
_This fungus does not attack any other crop_ than tomatoes, so far as
known, though it is very closely related to species of Fusarium
producing similar diseases in cotton, melon, cowpea, flax, etc. Fusarium
wilt has not been found in fields and gardens in the northern states,
but tomatoes in greenhouses there are sometimes attacked by it or a
related Fusarium, which also occurs in England. When greenhouse beds are
infected the soil for the next crop should be thoroughly sterilized by
steam under pressure.
=Sclerotium wilt.=--This disease resembles the two preceding in its
effect on the plant, which wilts at the tip first, and gradually dies.
Its geographical range is more restricted. It seems to be confined to
northern Florida and the southern part of Georgia and Alabama, where it
occurs in gardens and old cultivated fields. The fungus causing this
wilt attacks the root and the stem near the ground, working in from the
outside. There is not the browning of the wood vessels characteristic of
the two preceding diseases. If an affected stem is put in a moist
chamber made from a covered or inverted dish, there will develop an
exceedingly vigorous growth of snow-white fungous mycelium which, after
a few days, bears numerous round shot-like bodies, at first
light-colored, then becoming smaller and dark-brown. These are the
sclerotia or resting bodies of the fungus. This fungus, called
_Sclerotium_ sp., or "Rolf's Sclerotium," is noteworthy because it
attacks potatoes, squash, cowpea, and a long list of other garden
vegetables and ornamental plants. The only satisfactory means of control
is rotation of crops, using corn, small grain, and the Iron cowpea, a
variety immune to this and other diseases. Susceptible crops should be
kept from infected fields for two or three years.
=Root-knot= (_Heterodera radicicola_ (Greef) Mül.) attacks tomatoes in
greenhouses and is in some cases an important factor in southern field
culture. It is caused by a parasitic eelworm or nematode, of minute
size, which penetrates the roots and induces the formation of numerous
irregular swellings or galls, in which are bred great numbers of young
worms. The effect on the plant is to check growth and diminish
fruitfulness, in advanced cases even resulting in death.
_The remedy in greenhouse culture_ is thorough soil sterilization. In
the open field this is impracticable and recourse must be had to a
rotation with immune crops, which will starve out the root-knot. It must
now be borne in mind that the root-knot worm can attack cotton, cowpea,
okra, melons and a very large number of other plants. The only common
crops safe to use in such a rotation in the South are corn, oats,
velvet beans, beggar weed, peanuts, and the Iron cowpea. The use of
other varieties of cowpea than the Iron is particularly to be avoided,
on account of the danger of stocking the land with root-knot.
Fortunately, the disease is serious only in sandy or light soils.
=Rosette= (_Corticium vagum_ (B. & C.) var. _solani_ Burt.) is a disease
of minor importance, which occurs in Ohio, Michigan, and scatteringly in
other states. The fungus causing it (_Rhizoctonia_) attacks the roots
and base of the stem, forming dark cankers. The effect on the plant is
to dwarf and curl the leaves and to restrict productiveness. The potato
suffers more severely from the same trouble. Rotation of crops and
liberal application of lime to the soil are advised for the control of
rosette in tomatoes.
INDEX
PAGE
Adaptations of varieties, 97
as to habit, 97
as to foliage, 100
as to fruit, 102
Botany, 1
Canning, cost of, 118
on the farm, 118
Essentials for successful, 119
Catalog descriptions incomplete, 110
Characteristics of blossom, 25
Characteristics of fruit, 26
Development from original form, 26
Effect of conditions on, 26
Quality, 26
Characteristics of plant, 20
Checking of growth, effect upon, 20
Natural environment, 20
Uniform growth, importance of, 21
Characteristics of root, 23
Characteristics of stem and leaves, 24
Classification, 4
Cherry, 5
Cultivated varieties, 10
Currant, 4
Pear, 7
Cold-frames, construction, 53
Commercial importance of crop, 18
Cost of crop, per acre, 121
as grown for canners, 117
Covers for plant beds, 55
Cultivation, 76
Care and thoroughness necessary, 76
in greenhouse, 77
in home garden, 77
Diseases, 131
Bacterial wilt, 142
Blight, early, 135
Blight, leaf, 134
Blight, Western, 134
Cracking of fruit, 132
Damping off, 141
Edema, 133
Fusarium wilt, 144
Leaf curl, 132
Leaf mold, 135
Leaf spot, 134
Mildew, downy, 135
Mosaic disease, 133
Phytoptosis, 138
Point rot, 139
Root knot, 146
Sclerotium wilt, 145
Yellows, 134
Diseases, remedies for, 131
Bordeaux mixture, preparation of, 136
Preventatives of, 143
Spraying apparatus, 137
Spraying, importance of, 136
Sulphur spraying, 139
Distances for setting plants, 68
in field, 68
in greenhouse, 70
in home garden, 69
Drainage, importance of, 31
Essentials for best development, 28
Cultivation, 32, 76
Effect of shade, 28
Food supply, 31, 43
Heat, 30
Moisture, 30
Sunlight, 28
Exposure, 38
for early crop, 39
for greenhouse, 40
for home garden, 40
Fertilizers, 43
Amounts, 43
Character, 44
Experiments with, 45
for general application, 44
for greenhouse, 45
for home garden, 45
Flats, construction, 57
Gathering fruit, 91
Habit, 22
Handling fruit, 92
History, 14
Hotbeds, construction, 51
Hotbeds, growing fruit in, 70
House, construction, 49
Insects injurious to tomatoes, 123
Blister beetle, 125
Colorado potato beetle, 125
Cut worm, 123
Flea-beetle, 124
Stalk-borer, 127
Tomato fruit worm, 128
Tomato worm, 126
White fly, 130
Location of field as determining profit, 38
Manure
Fall dressing, 41
for cold-frames, 55
for greenhouse soil, 37
for hotbeds, 51
in preparing ground, 46
Origin, 10
Origin of name, 14
Packing, 94
Pollinating, 77
Pollination, 25
Prices obtained
at canneries, 118
for hothouse fruit, 122
for select field grown fruit, 122
Profits on crop, 122
Propagation of plants, 48
from cuttings, 49
from seed, 48, 49
in cold-frames, 53
in hotbeds, 51
in temporary greenhouses, 49
Pruning, 80
Ripening on the vines, 90
Ripening after frost, 95
Sash, cost, 49
for hotbeds, 52
for cold-frames, 53
Seed breeding, 112
Essentials to success, 113
Growing and saving commercial seed, 115
Methods followed, 115
Prices received, 116
Yields obtained, 116
Importance of breeding from individual plants, 114
Importance of exact ideals, 113
Methods recommended, 113
Principles underlying, 112
Setting plants, 70
Conditions favorable and unfavorable, 70, 71
in field, 70
in greenhouse, 74
in home garden, 74
New Jersey method, 71
Other methods, 73
Soil
Composition, importance of, 24
Conditions essential, 41
Preparation, 41, 46
for greenhouse, 47
for home garden, 47
Soil Preparation,
for main crop, 46
Importance of, 46
Selection, 33
for early crop, 36
for greenhouse, 37
for home garden, 36
for main crop, 34
Previous crop, 41
Sorting, 92
Staking, 79
Starting plants, 59
Effect of shade, 29
for early fruit, 63
for forcing, 67
for home garden, 67
for late crop, 65
in flats, 59
in greenhouse, 59
Pricking out, 60
Right conditions, 62
Spotting boards, 61
Unfavorable conditions, 63
Watering, 60
With least labor, 66
Succession, practice in the South, 42
Training, 79
for greenhouse, 88
for home garden, 85
Types, 14
Value, development of, 16
Variations,
in foliage, 100
in fruit, 102
Coloring, 106
Flesh, 105
Ripening, 106
Shape, 102
in habit, 97
Varietal differences,
as to foliage, 100
as to fruit, 102
as to growth, 97
Variety names, 108
Sources, 109
Varying application, 110
Watering, danger in, 30, 60
Yielding capacity, 22
Yield per acre, 117, 121
Yield per foot of greenhouse bench, 122
Transcriber's Notes
The following typographical errors have been corrected:
Page 61: "... necessary. When plants are set in ..." (had 'plans').
Page 107: "... these respects we have varieties ..." (had 'resepcts').
Page 117: "... the question, "What is the best ..." (had 'queston').
Page 148: "Mildew, downy, 135" (had 'downey').
Page 149: "Pollinating, 77" (had 'Pollenating').
Page 149: "Pollination, 25" (had 'Pollenation').
The archaic spelling of "hight" is as used throughout the original.
'_' is used to denote italics, and '=' is used to denote bold typeface.
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