Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato Part 5

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 cuc.u.mbers.

=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 a.s.sumed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cla.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 30--GREENHOUSE TOMATOES PACKED FOR MARKET (By courtesy Ohio Experiment Station)]

=Fruits after frost.=--Sometimes when there is a great quant.i.ty 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 cl.u.s.ters 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.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 31--BUCKEYE STATE, SHOWING LONG NODES AND DISTANCE BETWEEN FRUIT Cl.u.s.tERS]

Other varieties make a stout and vigorous but shorter growth, with more and heavier branches, shorter nodes and many small medium-sized cl.u.s.ters 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 32--STONE, AND CHARACTERISTIC FOLIAGE]

Other varieties form many short, weak, sprawling branches, with usually large and sometimes very large cl.u.s.ters 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 cl.u.s.ters few and small. From this, by crossing with other types, there has been developed a distinct cla.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 circ.u.mference, to that of Ponderosa, of which well-formed specimens over 20 inches in circ.u.mference have been grown.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ma.s.ses 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 quant.i.ties, 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 a.s.sured 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 cla.s.s 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