The Press., 1885-09-24
Issued Every Thursday Evening.
HISTORY OF THE TOMATO.

In an article upon "Kitchen Garden Els culents of American Origin, in the Ameri- can Naturalist, Dr. E. l.. Sturtevant las some interesting remarks upon the toma- to, from which we make the following ex- tracts:
 Tomatoes were eaten by the Nahua tribes, and were called (singly) tomaGtl (plural tone0nag)." The tomato "was de- scribed by various European botanists of the sixteenth century," * Itseems to have been grown in the European gar dens as a fruit, from it's first introduction, judging from the references in Dodon@us and Gerard but Parkinson, 1856, speaks speaks of it as grown in England for orna- ment and curiosity only In Italy, Chat eauvieux, 1872, mentions its cultivation on large scale for the Naples and Rome market. It is probable that its use was at first more general among southern na- tions, as we find that the Anglo-S Saxon race was the last to receive it into the kitchen garden. Thus, in 1774, Long describes the fruit well, and mentions it's frequent use ill soups and sauces, and adds that it is likewise fried and served up with eggs In 1778 Mare and Abercrombie mention five varieties as known, two of which are described as scentless and burnett -leaved, and add that they are eaten by the Span iards and Portuguese in particular, and are in high esteem.
 "In the United States its introduction preceded by many years it's use as we at present know it. It is said to have reach ed Philadelphia from St. Domingo in 1798, but not to have been sold ill the markets until 1929. It was used as an article of food in New Orleans in 1872. The first notice of it in American gardens was ap- parently by Jefferson, who notes it in Vir- ginia gardens in 1781. It was introduced into Salem, Mass, about 1902, by an Ital- ian, but he found it difficult to persuade people even to taste the fruit. Among American writers on gardening, McMahon, 1906, mentions the tomato, but no varie- ties, as fin much. esteem for culinary pur- poses ; Gardiner and Hepburn, 1918, say, Make excellent pickles ; Fessenden, 1928, quotes from Loudon only; Bridgeman, 1882, says, Much cultivated for its fruits in soups and sauces. They were first grown in western New York in 1925, the seed from Virginia, and in 1880 were not produced by the vegetable gardeners about Albany; yet directions for cultivating this fruit appeared in Thorburn's Gardeners Kalendar, 2d edit, New York, 1877. Buist writes that as an esculent plant in 1928-29 the tomato was almost detested, yet in ten years more every variety of pill and pana- cea was extract of tomato MT. T. S. Gold, secretary of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture, writes me that we raised our first tomatoes about 1882, only as a curiosity, made no use of them, though we had heard that the French ate them. They were called love apples D. J. Browne, 1884, describes six varieties, and says; 'The tomoto until within the last twenty years was almost wholly unknown in this country IS an esculent ntvegetable. In 1885 they were sold by the dozen in Quincy ] Market, Boston. In the Maine Farmer, October 1&, 1885, in an editorial on toma. toes, they are said to be Cultivated in gar dens in Maine, and to be a useful article of diet, and should be found on every mans table, In a local lecture in one oi the western colleges about this time, a Dr. Bennett refers to the tomato or Jerusalem apple as being found in the markets ill great abundance, and in the New York Farmer of this period one person is men. toned as having planted a large quantity for the purpose of making sauce. In 1844 the tomato was now acquiring that popu. larity which makes it so indispensable at present, writes R. Manning" From this it appears that ''the esculent use of the tomato in America does not antedate the present century, and only became general about 1885 to l840."