Evening star., 1894-02-17

esaPeu injury py jumping. l don't claim
originality for this new danger signal idea
as IL was suggested to me by a prominent
newspaper editor, but / believe 1t is a good
one ana I'm going to use it whenever /
DeheVe the necessity calls for it,
1T ORIGINATED HERE.
HOW District Garden Produced "a
Famous Tomato.
New things under the sun come high, and
the man and the spot that produce the N
are In luck. One of the best stories of a new
ehlng happened right here in the District of
columbia. 1t was in the summer of 1855
that Mr.. s. NJ. Clark. formerly superin-
'ehoeht or the bureau of engraving and
printing, found one morning in hi, garden
near Benning a new. peculiar tomato. It
was eVidentiy sport differing in every
respect from those around it, Mr. Clark
mad been raising tomatoes for family use
for several years. and knew the old yarie-
tlesone after another,as well as a school boy
knows his letters He watched the newcomer
CAREFULLY and noted it's characteristics. When
1t ripened 1t was a beautiful dark crimss;.
color The older varieties a: that tine
showed more or less of the purple shade.
ana oid market gardeners always know that
purpiisa tomato is inferior in flavor The
a
metallic taste. which is peculiarly unpleas-
ant. Mr.. Clark's new tomato Was bright
red, very smooth and ripened evenly. Its
most notable popularity was it's great size
When fully ripe one was picked and
weighed. 1t tipped the scale beam at pre-
cisely twenty-five ounces tomato that
would weigh a pound and half was GER
'ainiy a curiosity. Mr. Clark knew his
sport was worth looking after
A more surprising circumstance was de-
FeIoped when the new fruit was cut omen
ana tasted. It's meat was solid and thick
Tor over half an inch from the skin and the
center was nearly an inch and a half thick
and solid growth of pulp. The seed cell;
were not only few, but phenomenal, small
ana the dlscoverer quickly saw that S!s md
vas valuable. because the proportpn of
seed 10 edible meat was the smallest ever
seen at that time and probably the smallest
mat VIII ever be produced Mr. Clark
showed his tomato TO his friends There
were but few fruits on hts one vine and he
managed. by picking tNem M!,,le they were
still green. TO prolong their period of keep
in-, 50 that he could show them. Amen;
the truck gardeners of the Eastern branch
they were regarded as marvellous All ihr
ITuit On the vine showed the same charac-
teristics. the great size. smoothness bright
mRatlnPSS heinz &C M.
in every tomato
Todly that tomato IL known in every
market garden from Maine II San Diego.
or size, flavor, fewness of seeds and uni
form ripening Its equal has no. been seen.
tor canning IT IS easily the first and bes.
known. o: course there are other variet'N ";
tnat are GrS at flEoriteS. There are over l.O
varieties OF tomatoes. and the list is con-
3tan;ly i1creasin;;. Nowadays the fad is 10
develop new kinds of vegetables that can be
gown under glass with electric light in
winter time. SO as to hit the big out-of-
season prices in the large cities. The giant
tonato tnat first saw light over on the
eastern branch is not of this hot-house
Kind. 1t loves the open sky and sandy soil
well supplied with commercial phosphates
No crop that grows will 50 cleanly exhaust
the SOIL Of potash. nitrogen and phosphoric
acid. The best results therefore come
WIere the tomato can get all the food il
wants to feed upon. 1t will consume twice
as nluch potash and nitrogen as potatoes.
ana several times as much phosphorc acid
and it grows to its highest perfection on the
sandy. alluvial soils around WASHINGTON
And great as the demand is for 1t. the Sup
ply Is cultivated vita corparatiyeiy little
labor and cost. The price therefore need
Hc!ef be h.gh, and. IL fact is not Six tons
CA be raised to the acre-neariy twice as
much output in weight as the same soil
Fertilizer and labor will produce in potatoes
AMI ten times as much as in wheat Yet the
price seldom goes below 30 cents a busheI
and the farmers FL agree in saying that II
they can net % cents a bushel there is ..big
money" in tomatoes
With 5000 acres of tomatoes growing
every sun: in New Jersey 5000 in Mary
land and 1000 in Virginia with an outpit
worth L. tee aggregate in these three states
of nearly 100000. some idea can be had
of the importance of the effort to produce
improved varieties. Another thing that
must be considered is that the life of a
variety is very short. Ten wears is about
the average period during which any vari-
ETY. maintains itself in its Characteristic
qualities.
Mr.. Clark saved all the seed he conld. He
also mad an excellent picture of the ripe
fruit painted, so that he might show horti-
culturists during the following winter what
prize he had found. A. that time Mr.
clark was employed in the Department OF
Agriculture. and naturally his new tor,rto
became topic of general intere9t among
his associates there. The chief of the seed
division was especially pleased. and iuolI,,
tod Mr.. Clark to go ahead and raise III
the seed he.Couid the next year and the de-
partment would take all he could deliver at
SO pound. the minimum amount to be a
least ten pounds. All the seed saved was
planted in 1889 but the crop. OF c1,lrse va.
not large and the amount of seeI .ayad was
inconSderable. Mr. Clark ,,av,. seed 10 his
neighbors for trial and induced d few gar
deners to undertake to produce seed for the
department. This some dill. The most ex-
tensive experiment with the new plant was
undertaken by Mr.. W. F. Parish of Ian
ham, Md. who set out half an acre
IT was :s, poor Investment said Mr..
nicely fertilized and we'll TILED, l had a
splendid crop of tomatoes, but a mighty
small one Of seed. You couldn't guess how
little seed of that tomato can be raised to
the acre. / gathered a little less than two
pounds from the half-acre patch"
That, however. would have been worth
while If the seed could have been sold at $50
a pound. But Mr.. Clark's friend, who was
chief of the seed division in the Department
of Agriculture, had died in the meantime
and his market disappeared with him. Sub
sequently the new variety and the right to
handle it was purchased by a wel-known
horticuiturist at SD per pound for the seed,
and extensively cultivated and pushed
Thus to Mr.. Clark and the accident of
birth here in the District of Columbia the
country at large owes thanks for what is
generally regarded as the most important
variety of a favorite summer fruit
His Advances Spurned,
From Puck.