the row, and the soil should be very rich and warm. New York Purple is the leading variety, but those who succeed with the Black Pekin cannot fail to be pleased with its large, glossy fruits.
When all danger from frost is over, carefully transplant the Tomato plants from the cold frame to the open ground, to stand two feet apart in the row. As they grow tie them up on a trellis and remove all superfluous branches, so as to give the growing fruit the benefit of full sunshine, without which it will be of inferior quality and scarcely worth the having.[1] Nothing can be worse than allowing tomato plants to grow along the ground at will without any support. Better it would be not to grow any at all than to degrade them in that manner. Make a small trellis, four feet high, by nailing a few pieces of lath across small stakes driven into the ground. I regard Livingston’s Perfection as an excellent variety, and have grown extra large specimens of the Mikado, which, by the way, seems to have
- ↑ It is the extreme richness of the soil, which is claimed by Miss Moll to be requisite to the growth of the Tomato, that, in her case, renders the use of the trellis and pruning necessary, as it induces too rank a growth of vine, covering the ground so that the sun and air cannot penetrate unless the vines are tied up. We can hardly see any degradation in allowing the plant liberty to grow in the manner intended by nature. More than this, as seedsmen, we pride ourselves on the new and improved varieties of Tomatoes that we have introduced, and the finest we have ever grown—finest alike for size, color, quality and productiveness—have been grown on poor clay soil, that looked fairly yellow when at all dry, and we have never been able to equal them on either rich heavy loam, or on light soils. We would not undervalue the tying up of a few plants for early use, but claim that it is unnecessary for the general crop.—Ed.
