TOMATO CULTURE: A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE TOMATO TEXT

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