The Tomato

Part 1

Produced by Charlene Taylor, Betsie Bush, Scanned by Ray Bush and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

-------------------------------------- Transcriber's Note.

Hyphenation has been standardized. --------------------------------------

THE TOMATO

THE TOMATO

By PAUL WORK

Professor of Vegetable Crops, Cornell University Editor of Market Growers Journal

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK ORANGE JUDD PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. 1945

COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY ORANGE JUDD PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This book or any part thereof, may not be reproduced without permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.

Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention of the Pan American Republics and the United States August 11, 1910

1874-1931

Originator of tomato varieties of improved type and resistant to disease]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION 11

I. THE TOMATO IS A GREAT FOOD AND CROP PLANT 13

II. CHOOSE THE SOIL AND FEED THE PLANT 25

III. THE BEST IN SEED IS NONE TOO GOOD 38

IV. STRONG PLANTS FOR EARLY MATURITY AND HEAVY CROP 53

V. GOOD CULTURE FAVORS GOOD RETURNS 71

VI. TO TRAIN THEM UP OR LET THEM SPREAD 79

VII. THE ETERNAL BATTLE WITH INSECTS AND DISEASES 85

VIII. SKILLFUL SELLING CROWNS THE ENTERPRISE 93

IX. OPERATING IN THE RED OR IN THE BLACK 116

REFERENCES 119

Part 2

INDEX 133

ILLUSTRATIONS

F. J. Pritchard Frontispiece

FIGURE

1. The tomato is the leader among greenhouse vegetables 19

2. The tomato flower 22

3. Long section of tomato flower 23

4. How nitrate nitrogen affects tomato growth 27

5. Effect of omission of phosphorus from complete fertilizer 33

6. Cultivating and side-dressing tomatoes 36

7. Types of tomato interiors 43

8. The Earliana tomato 45

9. Marglobe plant 48

10. Marglobe fruit 49

11. A good small greenhouse for plant growing 58

12. Plants for the early crop 61

13. Tin can prepared for sowing tomato seed 64

14. Plants that have been crowded and overgrown 69

15. Tomatoes pruned and trained with post, wire and twine 80

16. Fine clusters on trained plants 81

17. Resistance to fusarium wilt 87

18. Diseases of the tomato 89

19. Packing tomatoes on a farm 99

20. A California packing house 101

21. Puffiness is a common defect in tomatoes 102

22. The lug box 104

23. Lug boxes as loaded in car 105

24. The square braid basket 106

Part 3

25. The Connecticut half bushel box 107

26. Repacked tomatoes 108

27. Cellulose film is used for repacked tomatoes 109

INTRODUCTION

Why should there be a book on tomatoes? The world is full of bulletins of experiment stations, of articles in periodicals and of general books on vegetables which include discussion of tomatoes.

An incomplete set of tomato bulletins includes over 350 documents. Many of these are no longer available. Many are of no great value but contribute this or that small item.

The task of a book like this is to offer between two covers, a summary of what seem the most significant facts and opinions about the third most important vegetable crop in the United States.

The tomato is one of the most rewarding crops for the home garden. A little space yields heavily, from half a peck to a peck per plant without difficulty. It grows well practically everywhere in the States, affording high nutritional values whether used fresh or canned. And people do like tomatoes, whether as salad, cooked vegetable, or condiment.

Competition among growers and among districts makes three elements necessary for commercial success:--quality in the goods, economy in production, and effectiveness in marketing.

The grower must know his plant, what it is like and how it behaves under various conditions and treatments. Then, he needs an understanding of the economic factors that surround his enterprise.

Conditions in various sections and production for various purposes are so diverse that dogmatic statement and general advice are precluded. The aim is rather by means of available information to help the reader to an understanding that will enable him to answer his own questions for his own conditions and this far better than any broad prescription could possibly do. Principles, possible practices and examples of field programs are offered as guides for self-help for home, school, hobby as well as commercial production.

A person who studies on this basis will not be thwarted by a sudden shift of weather or market but will have at hand the necessary facts and ideas to adjust his plan to changed conditions.

No attempt has been made toward complete citation of reference. Those given will lead to others making possible a full survey of the extensive literature.

The Tomato

THE TOMATO IS A GREAT FOOD AND CROP PLANT

Vegetable, Fruit or Berry,--what is the tomato? A standard query this is and many an argument has raged about it. The answer is easy. It is all three. By culture and use, it is a vegetable; botanically it is a fruit and among the fruits, it is a berry being indehiscent (non-shedding), pulpy, with one or more seeds that are not stones. And they say the tomato is more truly a berry than the raspberry.

But that doesn't make much difference. The thing that matters is that people like the tomato. It is easy to grow and nearly every home garden has it. It is good to look upon--shapely, colorful and of glossy sheen. A trained single stem plant with ripening fruit is a genuine ornament in the garden. It is most gratifying to the palate, fresh or cooked; soft and grainy, smooth and juicy in texture, sweet and tart and with an appealing flavor all of its own that few fail to relish. As juice or cocktail, adding color and flavor to soup, as condiment or as side dish with the entree, as salad freshly sliced or in jell, it is welcome with almost every course and some ingenious chef or, more likely, some clever housewife will, one of these days, fashion from it the dessert supreme.

Nor have we exhausted the list of forms in which the tomato may be served. In addition to its simplest cooked form, stewed or turned hot from the can, it may also be baked, stuffed or not, or it may be escalloped and cooked with rice, spaghetti or other foods. Fried, before fully ripe, and served with brown gravy, it is most popular in many a home.

Ketchup or catsup is one of our most widely used condiments and chili sauce many like even better. Green tomato pickles, chow chow, piccalilli carry the piquant tang of the tomato to enliven the winter table. And tomato juice, plain or dressed up with spices, vinegar or lemon juice has become a great staple of our groceries, a standard send-off for any meal from breakfast snatched on the morning sprint to work on through to the most elaborate of banquets.

The tomato, by reason of its natural acidity, is readily sterilized and so can be preserved easily in glass or tin. It ranks first among the "big three" canned vegetables; the other two being sweet corn and peas. By far the great bulk that goes to the factory is put up with the addition of nothing more than salt. In addition to the condiments, puree and paste are manufactured in commercial quantities. The Italians dry tomatoes extensively in the sun, slicing the fruits, and later flavoring them to taste for various winter uses.

Though the tomato was not recognized as a valuable food until about a century ago, its merit is now universally accepted. Bob Adams used to call it "the poor man's orange" for it is rich in vitamins and in malic and citric acid, possessing besides, a fine appetizing flavor which is as truly a value in nutrition as it is a pleasure.

Actually, the tomato is mostly water, of rather low protein and carbohydrate content but this does not detract, for other foods are dependable for these staples of nutrition and most of us eat too much of them.

The tomato is a youngster among the vegetables. In contrast to the onion of Egyptian lore and the cucumber reputed to have been used in Western Asia many centuries ago, the tomato is not reported until the herbalists of the 16th century recorded its culture in Italy and England--but with little of the esteem now accorded. The name seems to be of Aztec origin and two distinct wild forms--one corresponding to our cherry or currant varieties and the other to our larger, flatter, less regular fruits of many cells,--are to be found wild in Latin America. Its American origin is generally accepted.

Commercially, the tomato is a great crop. Among the vegetables, it is outranked only by the potato and the sweet potato.

The following table gives a few figures on the tomato crop:

====================================================================== | | Acres | Value | | Thousands | Million dollars |1929-38+-------------+---------+------+------ |Average| | |1929-38| | | |1939|1940|Average|1939|1940 ----------------------+---------+------+------+---------+------+------ U.S. for canning | 369 | 358 | 386 | 19 | 24 | 24 for fresh market | 177 | 210 | 204 | 24 | 34 | 29 +---------+------+------+---------+------+------ Total | 546 | 568 | 590 | 43 | 58 | 53 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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