Tomato Culture: a Practical Treatise on the Tomato

CHAPTER XX. Tomato Diseases 131

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

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.

=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.

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.

=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.

=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.

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